The soldiers who guarded Newgate were, at our own request, dismissed. They overlooked the women's wards, and rendered them very disorderly.... I found poor Woodman lying-in in the common ward, where she had been suddenly taken ill; herself and little girl were each doing very well. She was awaiting her execution at the end of the month. What can be said of such sights as these?... I read to Woodman, who is not in the state of mind we could wish for her; indeed, so unnatural is her situation that one can hardly tell how, or in what manner, to meet her case. She seems afraid to love her baby, and the very health which is being restored to her produces irritation of mind. This last entry furnishes, incidentally, proof of the barbarity of the laws of Christian England at that time. Human life was of no account compared with the robbery of a few shillings, or the cutting down of a tree. This matter of capital punishment, in its turn, attracted the attention of the Quaker community, together with other philanthropic individuals, and the statute book was in time freed from many of the sanguinary enactments which had, prior to that period, disgraced it. By this time notoriety began to attend Mrs. Fry's labors, and she was complimented and stared at according to the world's most approved fashion. The newspapers noticed her work; the people at Court talked about it; and London citizens began to realize that in this quiet Quakeress there dwelt a power for good. Given an unusual method of doing good, noticed by the high in place and power, together with praise or criticism by the papers, and, like Lord Byron, the worker wakes some morning to find himself or herself famous. But growing fame did not agree with Elizabeth Fry's moral or spiritual nature. She possessed far too noble a soul to be pleased with it; her responsibility and her success, except so far as they affected the waifs she desired to bless, were matters for her own conscience, and her God. She mentioned in her journal her fears whether or not this publicity, and the evident respect paid her by the people in power in the city, might not develop worldly pride of self-exaltation in her. Highly-toned and pure as her spirit was, it shrank from any strain of self-seeking or pride. Only such a spirit could have conceived such a work of usefulness; only such an one could endure the inevitable repulsion which attends such work among the degraded, and conquer. CHAPTER VII. EVIDENCE BEFORE THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.