Mrs. Fry held quite as decided opinions upon lunatic asylums and their keepers. It was something terrible to her to know that poor demented creatures lay pining, chained and ill-treated, in dungeons; knowing no will but the caprice of their keepers. She spared no efforts to improve their condition; by tongue and pen she sought to enforce new principles and modes of action, in relation to lunatics, into the mind of those who had to govern them. So incessant were her labors to attain the ends she had set before her, that there was not a country in Europe which she did not influence. Almost daily communications were coming in from France, Denmark, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, and other countries, detailing the success of the new plans which she had introduced and recommended to the respective Governments. A regular correspondence was kept up between her and Mr. Venning of St. Petersburg, by order of the Empress of Russia, who took the greatest interest in the benevolent enterprise. From some letters given in the _Memoirs of Mrs. Fry_ it seems that the Empress felt a true Womanly compassion for the inmates of the Government Lunatic Asylum, and inaugurated a system of more rational treatment. How far her influence on behalf of the imprisoned and insane was induced and fostered by the English Quakeress, was never fully known until after her death, when a most interesting letter, addressed to the children of Mrs. Fry, was published. This letter was sent to them by Mr. John Venning, brother to Walter Venning, who had opened the correspondence, but who had, like the benevolent lady with whom it was maintained, "passed over to the majority." From this correspondence it was found that the Emperor and Empress of Russia, the Princess Sophia Mestchersky, Prince Galitzin, and many ladies of high rank, had been stirred up to befriend those who had fallen under the strong arm of the law, and to make their captivity more productive, if possible, of good results. Not only so, but lunatics, more helpless than prisoners, had been cared for, as the outcome of Mrs. Fry's visits to St. Petersburg, and her communications with the powers that were at that era. With these preliminary words of explanation, the subjoined letter speaks for itself:--