Newgate, on the other hand, when first visited by Mrs. Fry, was a perfect sink of abomination, rivalling quite the worst pictures painted by Howard. There could hardly have been a more terrible place than the women’s side. All that Mrs. Fry and her companions accomplished is now a matter of history. But the condition of Millbank under Mr. Nihil was not that of Newgate and other prisons in 1816. It could not be said the Penitentiary prisoners were neglected. No fault could be found with their treatment generally, or the measures taken to provide for their spiritual needs. Long before the arrival of the “Ladies’ Association” the religious instruction of the female prisoners may be said to have reached a point of saturation: the preaching and praying, if I may say so, had been already a little overdone. Hence it was that their advent deepened only the outward hypocrisy and lip service, and was productive of little good. The most serious annoyance entailed upon the governor of Millbank was the charge of female transports awaiting transportation. None of these were worse than a certain Julia Newman, who was a Penitentiary prisoner, and whose case I shall describe at some length, taking it as a type of the whole. But there were many others among the female convicts who were also very desperate characters indeed; such as the woman from Liverpool, concerning whom the governor of the gaol wrote to say that she was so desperate that he thought it would be necessary to send her tied up in a sack. Mary McCarthy, was another, who was brought in handcuffs from Newgate, with a note to the effect that she required the greatest attention. She had several times attempted to strangle herself, and had therefore been handcuffed day and night and constantly watched. “She is a most artful, designing woman, and will succeed, if not well looked after, in her attempts to destroy herself.”