Netherlands, young Prince William, besides several other princes and princesses not royal. Your uncle Joseph spoke for a little while, explaining our views on worship. Then I enlarged upon the changes that had taken place since I was last in Prussia; mentioned the late King's kindness to these poor Tyrolese in their affliction and distress; afterwards addressed these poor people, and then those of high rank, and felt greatly helped to speak the truth to them in love. They finished with a hymn." Her last brief visit to the Continent was paid in 1843, and spent wholly in Paris. Mrs. Fry was particularly interested in French prisons, as well as in the measures designed to ameliorate the condition of those who tenanted them. Reformation had become the order of the day there as in England; the Duchess of Orleans, the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg, M. Guizot, the Duc de Broglie, M. de Tocqueville, M. Carnot, and other high and noble personages were much interested in the subject. A bill to sanction the needful reforms was introduced to the Chamber of Deputies by the Minister of the Interior, and ably supported by him in a speech of great lucidity and power. Said he, when laying it before the Chamber: "Our subject is not entirely to sequestrate the prisoner nor to confine him to absolute solitude. Some of the provisions of the bill will mitigate the principle of solitary confinement in a manner which was suggested by the Commission of 1840, and should not pass unnoticed by the Chamber. Convicts sentenced to more than twelve years' hard labor, or to perpetual hard labor, after having gone through twelve years of their punishment, or when they shall have attained the age of seventy, will be no longer separated from others, except during the night." The bill further provided, besides this mitigation of the solitary confinement system, that the "Bagnes," where galley slaves had hitherto labored, should be replaced by houses of hard labor, and that smaller prisons should be erected for minor offenses instead of sending criminals convicted of them to the great central prisons. The bill was certainly destined to effect a total revolution in the management of such places as St. Lazare and similar prisons, in addition to giving solid promise of improvement in the punitive system of France.