Undeterred by these sarcasms and misrepresentations, the Society pursued its laudable undertaking with remarkable energy and great singleness of purpose. The objects it had in view were set forth in one of its earliest meetings. It sought to obtain and diffuse useful information, to suggest beneficial regulations, and circulate tracts demonstrating the advantages of classification, constant inspection, regular employment, and humane treatment generally, with religious and moral instruction. It earnestly advocated the appointment of female officers to take exclusive charge of female prisoners, a much-needed and, according to our ideas, indispensable reform, already initiated by the Ladies' Committee at Newgate.[70] It made the subject of the newly-invented tread-wheels, or stepping-wheels, as they were at first called, its peculiar affair, and obtained full details, from places where they had been adopted, of the nature of these new machines,[71] the method by which they were worked, and the dietaries of the prisoners employed upon them. Nor did it confine itself to mere verbal recommendations. The good it tried to do took active shape in the establishment of temporary refuges--at Hoxton for males, and in the Hackney Road for females--for the reception of deserving cases discharged from prison. The governor of Newgate and other metropolitan prisons had orders of admission to this refuge, which he could bestow on prisoners on release, and so save the better-disposed or the completely destitute from lapsing at once into crime. The refuge, which had for its object the training of its inmates in habits of industry, and in moral and religious duty, and which after a time sought to provide them with suitable situations, was supported entirely out of the funds of the Society. At the time of its greatest prosperity, its annual income from donations and subscriptions was about £1600.