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Ridley's. ... Home late, almost dead — to bed, having been on foot twenty hours.”
“July 4.... Saw a sight of misery, a little crumb of a boy, barefoot, tugging after a hand-organ man, also very shabby.
Gave the little one a ha'penny, all the copper I had. But in the heartache he gave me, I resolved, God helping me, that my luxury shall henceforth be to minister to human misery, and to redeem much time and money spent on my own fancies, as I may.. ..”
She had been asked to attend two important meetings as American delegate: a peace congress in Paris, and a great prison reform meeting in London.
The French meeting came first.
She crossed the Channel, reaching Paris in time to attend the principal stance of the congress.
She presented her credentials, asked leave to speak, and was told “with some embarrassment” that she might speak to the officers of the society, when the public meeting should be adjourned!
She makes no comment on this proceeding, but says, “I accordingly met a dozen or more of these gentlemen in a side room, where I simply spoke of my endeavors to enlist the sympathies and efforts of women in behalf of the world's peace.”
Returning to London, she had “the privilege of attending as a delegate one of the great Prison Reform meetings of our day.”
In 1843, Julia the bride would not have considered it a privilege to attend a meeting for prison reform.
She would have shrugged her shoulders, would perhaps have pouted because the Chevalier cared more for
Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York. 1916.
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