131

CHAPTER XI.

NEW THEORIES OF PRISON DISCIPLINE AND MANAGEMENT. 153

CHAPTER XII.

MRS. FRY IN DOMESTIC AND RELIGIOUS LIFE. 182

CHAPTER XIII.

COLLATERAL GOOD WORKS. 212

CHAPTER XIV.

EXPANSION OF THE PRISON ENTERPRISE--HONORS. 228

CHAPTER XV.

CLOSING DAYS OF LIFE. 253

CHAPTER XVI.

FINIS. 265

ELIZABETH FRY.

CHAPTER I.

LIFE AT EARLHAM, A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

A hundred years ago, Norwich was a remarkable centre of religious,
social and intellectual life. The presence of officers, quartered with
their troops in the city, and the balls and festivities which attended
the occasional sojourn of Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester,
combined to make the quaint old city very gay; while the pronounced
element of Quakerism and the refining influences of literary society
permeated the generation of that day, and its ordinary life, to an
extent not easily conceived in these days of busy locomotion and
new-world travel. Around the institutions of the established Church had
grown up a people loyal to it, for, as an old cathedral city, the charm
of antiquity attached itself to Norwich; while Mrs. Opie and others
known to literature, exercised an attraction and stimulus in their
circles, consequent upon the possession of high intellectual powers and
good social position. It was in the midst of such surroundings, and with
a mind formed by such influences, that Elizabeth Fry, the prison
philanthropist and Quaker, grew up to young womanhood.

She was descended from Friends by both parents: her father's family had
been followers of the tenets of George Fox for more than a hundred
years; while her mother was granddaughter of Robert Barclay, the author
of the _Apology for the People called Quakers_. It might be supposed
that a daughter of Quaker families would have been trained in the
strictest adherence to their tenets; but it seems that Mr. and Mrs. John
Gurney, Elizabeth's parents, were not "plain Quakers." In other words,
they were calm, intellectual, benevolent, courteous and popular people;
not so very unlike others, save that they attended "First-day meeting,"
but differin