Page:Elizabeth Fry (Pitman 1884).djvu/181

 each ship sailing from that port, took out a well-chosen library of about thirty books. These library books were changed on each succeeding voyage, and were highly appreciated by both officers and seamen.

In 1836, the report of the Committee for Furnishing the Coast Guard of the United Kingdom with Libraries, appeared. From it, we find that in addition to the £500 kindly granted by the Government at first towards the project, Mr. Spring Rice, a later Chancellor of the Exchequer, granted further sums amounting to £460. Thus the undertaking was brought to a successful termination. There were supplied: 498 libraries for the stations on shore, including 25,896 volumes; 74 libraries for districts on shore, including 12,880 volumes; 48 libraries for Cruisers, including 1,867 volumes; School books for children of crews, 6,464 volumes; Pamphlets, tracts, &c., 5,357 numbers; total, 52,464 volumes and numbers.

These were distributed among 21,000 people on Coast Guard stations, and to the hands on board many ships. Years afterwards, many and very unexpected letters of thanks continued to reach Mrs. Fry from those who had benefited by this good work.

"Instant in season and out of season," this very trip in the south of England produced another good work. She, with her husband and daughter, returned home by way of North Devon, Somerset, and Wiltshire. At Amesbury, she tarried long enough to learn something of the mental destitution of the shepherds employed on Salisbury Plain, and set her fertile brain to contrive a scheme for the supply of the necessary books. She communicated her desires and intentions to the clergyman of the