course of his journey, was the bridewell of Surry, at Guilford, in which he found neither bedding, straw, nor work. Soon after his return from making investigations into the condition of these abodes of vice. and misery, he was examined before a committee of the house of commons, touching the knowledge he had thus acquired; and, being called to the bar, the speaker acquainted him that the house was very sensible of the humanity and zeal which had led him to visit the several jails of this kingdom, and conveyed to him the grateful thanks of the house and the country for his benevolent exertions in behalf of the most destitute and outcast members of this community.

Mr. Howard continued, throughout the year 1773–74, to inspect the prisons and bridewells of England, and, on one occasion, extended his tour of philanthropy into Scotland and Ireland. In 1775, he proceeded to the continent, for the purpose of examining the jails in France, Holland, and part of Flanders, Germany, and Switzerland, most of which he found under better management than those in Great Britain. He was particularly pleased with the prisons of Holland, which presented a model, that, except in a few points, he wished to have seen adopted in England, and every nation on the globe. He found a good deal to interest him in Germany. In the towns in that country, he frequently saw the doors of sundry rooms in the prisons marked, Ethiopia, India, Italy, France, England, &c. On inquiring what such words meant, he was informed that in these rooms, parents, by the authority of the magistrates, confined their dissolute children, answering, in the mean while, to the

inquiries which might be made after them, that they were gone to whatever country might be written upon the place of their confinement.

In travelling, Howard lived in the plainest manner; generally carrying along with his luggage a tea-kettle and other utensils, as well as the materials for making tea, of which he was fond, for its simple exhilarating qualities. At the inns, however, he generally ordered the best victuals and wines, so that there might be no complaint as to his stinginess; but these luxuries he seldom tasted. When he considered himself ill-treated by postilions, he punished them by withholding extra fees; but, to show that he did not do so for the purpose of saving money, he sent his servant to gather the poor of the place, and, in the presence of the postilion, distributed among them the sum he would have paid. These traits of character becoming widely known, he was generally carefully attended to wherever he travelled.

On one occasion, he happened to visit a monastery at Prague, where he found the inmates feasting on a day which ought to have been devoted to abstinence. He was so much displeased with this breach of discipline, that he threatened to proceed to Rome to inform the Pope; and it was only after the monks had made the most humiliating apology, and expressed their contrition, that he promised to be silent on the subject to the head of their church. In 1781, he again departed from England on a tour of philanthropy, in order to proceed through Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Poland, and some other countries in the north of Europe, with the view of inspecting the prisons

and hospitals on his route. Copenhagen, Stockholm, Petersburg, and Moscow were respectively visited, and in each he collected valuable information on the state of the common jails, and modes of punishment.

Having thus visited every state of Europe, whence he could hope to derive assistance for the completion of the great design which animated him, except the two southern kingdoms of Spain and Portugal, he next directed his course thither, and on this journey visited the prisons of Madrid, Lisbon, and other populous towns. This tour being completed, he returned to England, and finished his fourth general inspection of the English jails, preparatory to the publication of a second edition of his Appendix to the State of Prisons, a work he had sometime before given to the public. When these journeys were finished, he summed up the number of miles which, in less than ten years, he had travelled in his own country and abroad, on the reform of prisons, bridewells, and hospitals, and found that they formed a total of forty-two thousand and thirty-three.

When, in the spring of 1784, Howard had laid before the public the result of his minute inspection of the prisons, and many of the hospitals of his own country, and of the principal states of Europe, he retired to his estate at Cardington, in whose calm seclusion he purposed to spend the remaining years of his existence. He had now nothing to embitter his peace but the conduct of his son, who, having been sent to the University of Edinburgh, and placed under the care of the venerable Dr. Blacklock, unhappily contracted habits of dissipation and extravagance,

which were his own ruin, and well-nigh broke his father's heart.

After having devoted more than eleven years of his valuable existence to the reformation of the jails, and the improvement of the hospitals of his own country, as well as those of foreign states, he determined again to quit his home on a journey of benevolence, more important to the interests of the human race, though fraught with greater danger to himself, than any he had yet undertaken. His plan was indeed the most humane and beneficent that ever entered into the mind of man, for it was to check the progress of devouring pestilence, be inspecting the condition of the principal lazarettos in Europe, and, if possible, to throw light on the origin of that dreadful scourge of mankind-the plague. On this tour of mercy, he visited the Italian states, and from thence passed by sea to Turkey, in which country he examined the hospitals and prisons of Constantinople, Smyrna, and other places. While on this expedition, being at sea, the vessel was attacked by a Moorish privateer. In the engagement which took place, he fought with great bravery, and aided in repelling the attack of the barbarians. When he arrived in Venice, he submitted, with the crew of the vessel, to the most shocking privations in a loathsome lazaretto, in order to acquire knowledge of the management of those. supposed to be laboring under plague. In all these trials his cheerfulness never forsook him. Being liberated in due course of time, he returned to England, and resumed his inspection of the town and county jails and bridewells. It is mentioned that he

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frequently exercised his liberality in relieving poor debtors from confinement, by paying their debts. "I have often seen him come to his lodgings," says the journal of his attendant in most of his tours, " in such spirits and joy, when he would say to me, 'I have made a poor woman happy; I have sent her husband home to her and her children.' He was exceedingly methodical in spending his time. He generally declined every invitation to dinner or to supper whilst on his tours; abstained from visiting every object of curiosity, however attractive, and even from looking into a newspaper, lest his attention should be diverted from the grand purpose in which he was engaged.

In 1789-90, Howard again proceeded on a journeywhich was the seventh and last-to the continent, to reëxamine the prisons and hospitals of Holland, part of Germany, Prussia, and Russia. His plan was to have spent three years abroad. One object of his pursuit, and perhaps the principal one, was to obtain further information respecting the plague, by extending his visits to those parts of the world in which it rages with the greatest virulence, and on some of whose infectious coasts it is supposed to take its rise. As soon as he had resolved to undertake this hazardous journey, he became impressed with the belief that it would be his last; and when he took leave of one and another of his friends, he did it as one whose face they would see no more on this side of the grave. These feelings were sadly verified. The benevolent Howard penetrated, in his journey, into the deserts of Tartary, to the confines of the Euxine Sea, everywhere examining the prisons and hospitals, and doing