As her husband was a well known lawyer in his day, and had been a general in the Civil War, this fact gave Mrs. Foster at the start a great amount of influence with judges and magistrates, which would have taken others of lesser note many years to acquire. At first she confined her labors to the Police Courts and District Prisons, where she gave help to women and girls who had been locked up for petty offences. But for the last ten years of her life she confined her labors to the Tombs Prison almost exclusively. It is interesting to know how Mrs. Foster began what proved to be her life work as an angel of mercy among prisoners. As I received it directly from her own lips, I feel sure that I have the true account of what is generally believed to be the beginning of a most useful life. The whole thing seems to be providential, and clearly shows how the channels of a life may be changed for good by an insignificant event. When General Foster was yet alive, Mrs. Foster was called upon to go hurriedly to a police court to intercede on behalf of a boy twelve years of age, the son of a washer woman, who worked occasionally around the Foster home. The boy had been arrested for a petty offence, and General Foster had agreed to defend him in the Police Court, as he was innocent of any crime, but on the day when his case was to be called, the General was too ill to leave his room. He accordingly sent Mrs. Foster with a note to Magistrate Hogan, who was then sitting at Jefferson Market Police Court, asking for an adjournment of the case. When Mrs. Foster reached the court, the case was then on, and when the opportunity came she made such a powerful plea that the Magistrate discharged the boy. He then thanked Mrs. Foster for the interest she took in the case, and as she was about to leave, the Court called her attention to the case of a young, homeless girl, who had been arrested that day for soliciting on the street. The Magistrate asked Mrs. Foster to investigate the girl’s story before he took final action, as he did not wish to send her to the Island, where she would be ruined by association with the depraved inmates of the work house. Mrs. Foster made the investigation, had her paroled in her own custody, and then sent her home to another part of the country. By these acts of kindness, the girl was saved. One of the most celebrated cases of the day, that brought Mrs. Foster’s name prominently before the public, was the trial and conviction of Maria Barberi, for the murder of Dominico Catalonia, in July, 1895. Miss Barberi was a woman of considerable intelligence. She had been greatly wronged by her lover, who refused to marry her. While suffering mental agony brought on by remorse of conscience, when she saw herself ruined and disgraced as she then was, she killed Catalonia.