ease to excite the respect due to their office;
whereas, where ladies go in once, or twice, or three times a week,
the effect produced is decided. Their attendance keeps the female
officers in their places, makes them attend to their duty, and has
a constant influence on the minds of the prisoners themselves. In
short, I may say, after sixteen years' experience, that the result
of ladies of principle and respectability superintending the female
officers in prisons, and the prisons themselves, has far exceeded
my most sanguine expectations. In no instance have I more clearly
seen the beneficial effects of ladies' visiting and superintending
prisoners than on board convict-ships. I have witnessed the
alterations since ladies have visited them constantly in the river.
I heard formerly of the most dreadful iniquity, confusion, and
frequently great distress; latterly I have seen a very wonderful
improvement in their conduct. And on the voyage, I have most
valuable certificates to show the difference of their condition on
their arrival in the colony. I can produce, if necessary, extracts
from letters. Samuel Marsden, who has been chaplain there a good
many years, says it is quite a different thing: that they used to
come in a most filthy, abominable state, hardly fit for anything;
now they arrive in good order, in a totally different situation.
And I have heard the same thing from others. General Darling's
wife, a very valuable lady, has adopted the same system there; she
has visited the prison at Paramatta, and the same thing respecting
the officers is felt there as it is here. On the Continent of
Europe, in various parts--St. Petersburg, Geneva, Turin, Berne,
Basle, and some other places--there are corresponding societies,
and the result is the same in every part. In Berlin they are doing
wonders--I hear a most satisfactory account; and in St. Petersburg,
where, from the barbarous state of the people, it was said it could
not be done, the conduct of the prisoners has been perfectly
astonishing--an entire change has been produced.

On the 22d of May, 1835, Mrs. Fry was desired to attend the Select
Committee of the House of Lords, appointed to inquire into the state of
the several jails and houses of correction in England and Wales. She
went, accompanied by three ladies, co-