Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/347

260 twenty signatures were obtained, names were forwarded her in such numbers that it was impossible for one person to keep the records. Mrs. Spooner wrote numerous letters to experts throughout the country, and secured valuable facts that resulted in the formation of this League. The following tribute to her work is copied from an editorial in a Boston paper:&mdash;

"The brave attacks that have been made by a Massachusetts woman against prison evils interfering with physical, moral, and mental improvement, have not merely been approved in this country, but they have attracted attention on the other side of the ocean. Now, through her efforts, a tour of investigation is being made through the South to inquire into prison systems and the measures that are used to reform criminals of both sexes. The camp life, for instance, with its vicious environments, offers little chance for better living or embracing any religious instruction. The men in chain gangs who are hired out for work and exposed to the public gaze and cruel criticism do not, as a rule, know the meaning of the word 'encouragement.' Their existence is often a hell on earth, and the wonder is, they survive its degradation as long as they do. The hope of improving and elevating inmates of prisons may be fallacious, sentimental: but, unless improvement is achieved by some such endeavor, humanity happier in its surroundings must be the sufferer. It is to vigilant reform that North, South, East, and West now look for inspiration for the ways and means that will elevate character, even when paying its penalty for crime."

The League does not rest content that the agitation has abolished the long-approved gallows, nor does it accept as true that electrocution is one step in advance.

Mrs. Spooner has presented able arguments before the Joint Judiciary Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature, has arranged many hearings, distributed literature, and written hundreds of articles upon the subject so near her heart. She has received numerous requests from libraries for copies of her sociological writings.

No higher estimate of this work of charity can be found than in the annual report of the penal institutions commissioner to the mayor of the city of Boston in 1899, under the head of "Reform of Women Inmates." "A most encouraging work has been done by Mrs. Florence Garrettson Spooner, the President of the Prison Reform League. Recognizing her earnest sympathy for female prisoners, I appointed her in the early part of 1898 to do such work as missionary among the female inmates of the House of Correction as she might think proper looking toward their reformation. I have been much pleased with her work there. The most hardened women have softened under the beneficent influence with which she has surrounded them. No better measure of her work can be shown than the decrease in the punishments among the class with which she works."

In literary work and on the platform as a lecturer she is straightforward and perfectly at ease in discussing all phases and points of prison reform. Because of her tact, amiability, and encouragement to prisoners she has the confidence of officials and special privileges to study human nature from the inside of the prison, accorded to no other woman in the State, prison commissioners excepted.

She was appointed by Governor Greenhalge one of the colonial committee of twelve from Massachusetts to the Cotton States and International Exposition at Atlanta, Ga. Mrs. Spooner is now in the prime of life and in active service. She has received the spontaneous cooperation of others in her noble work.

Her husband, Henry T. Spooner, a studious, busy man, devoted to his books, gives cordial sympathy and practical support to the work in which his wife is engaged. Mr. Spooner was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., son of Henry Pierson and Emma (Brittan) Spooner. His father was a descendant of the Aldens, Germaynes, and Cottons. His mother was the daughter of Thomas Standfast Brittan, a clergyman who left England and became rector of a church in Brooklyn.

In the annual report of the penal institutions commissioner, Alpheus Sanford writes to the Hon. Patrick A. Collins, Mayor of the city of Boston, that Mrs. Spooner was known throughout the House of Correction as the "women's