Page:Elizabeth Fry (Pitman 1884).djvu/129

Rh , the treadmill for hardened, refractory, and depraved women, but only for short periods. All needleworkers especially should receive some remuneration for their work, which remuneration should be allowed to accumulate for their benefit by such time as their sentences expire, in order that when they leave prison they may possess a little money wherewith to commence the world afresh. Her words are: “The greater portion of their allotted share of earnings, however, must be reserved for them against the time of their leaving prison and returning to the world. The possession of a moderate sum of money will then be found of essential importance as the means of preventing an almost irresistible temptation, the temptation of want and money, to the renewal of criminal practices. And if, in labouring for this remuneration the poor criminal has also gained possession of the habit of industry, and has learned to appreciate the sweets of regular employment, it is more than probable that this temptation may never occur again.”

Mrs. Fry quotes largely from the Act of Parliament, relative to the matters of diet, medical attendance, clothing, bedding, and firing. It seemed to be the fact that the provisions of this Act did not extend to prisons which were exclusively under local jurisdiction; she therefore recommends lady visitors and committees to see them enforced as much as possible. While preserving even-handed justice between criminals and the country whose laws they have outraged, by suggesting that their treatment should be sufficiently penal to be humiliating, that their hair should be cut short, and all personal ornaments forbidden, she pleads earnestly for proper bedding and firing. She says: “During inclement weather, diseases are sometimes