2 AUGUST 1884, Page 26

Elizabeth Fry. By Mrs. E. R. Pitman. (W. H. Allen

and Co.)— Mrs. Fry's life has been written before ; but it is a story which becomes more significant as time goes on. The world has been moving very swiftly along the way in which she was a pioneer. Society acknowledges the duty to its outcasts which she was one of the first to recognise ; and it is well to confess anew the great debt which we owe to this clear-sighted, tender-hearted, brave woman. It is nothing less than astonishing to look back upon the monstrous evils which the national conscience permitted less than a century ago ; to read, for instance, how the female convicts were landed in Australia without having provided for them either shelter or money,—how they were simply turned out with an allowance of provisions. It was against this and the like evils that Mrs. Fry contended so steadfastly ; extending her work to other countries besides this, as when, for in- stance, she visited the Hospice des Enfans Tronves, at Paris. The terrible story of this place may be seen on p. 103. This is a good book, worthy of a place in the interesting "Eminent Women Series."