'By separation from other men, by loneliness, in continual silence shall the criminal be punished and benefited; on this account cell prisons are built. In Sweden there are many such, and new ones are building. I visited for the first time one in Marienstadt. The building lies in a beautiful landscape, close by the town, on a small stream of water, like a great villa, white and smiling, with window upon window. But one soon discovers that the stillness of the grave rests over the place; it seems as if no one dwelt here, or as if it were a dwelling forsaken during the plague. The gates of these walls are locked; but one opened and the jailor received us, with his bundle of keys in his hand. The court is empty and clean; even the grass between the paving stones is weeded out. We entered the 'reception room,' to which the prisoner is first taken; then the bath room, whither he is carried next. We ascend a flight of stairs, and find ourselves in a large hall, built the whole length and height of the building. Several galleries, one over another in the different stories, extend round the whole hall, and in the midst of the hall is the chancel, from which, on Sundays, the preacher delivers his sermon before an invisible audience. All the doors of the cells, which lead upon the galleries, are half opened, the prisoners hear the preacher, but they cannot see him, nor he them. The whole is a well-built machine for a pressure of the spirit. In the door of each cell there is a glass of the size of an eye; a valve covers it on the outside, and through this may the warden, unnoticed by the prisoners, observe all which is going on within; but he must move with soft step, noiselessly, for the hearing of the prisoner is wonderfully sharpened by solitude. I removed the valve from the glass very softly, and looked into the closed room--for a moment the glance of the prisoner met my eye. It is airy, pure, and clean within, but the window is so high that it is impossible to look out. The whole furniture consists of a high bench, made fast to a kind of table, a berth, which can be fastened with hooks to the ceiling, and around which there is a curtain. Several cells were opened to us. In one there was a young, very pretty maiden; she had lain down in her berth, but sprang out when the door was opened, and her first movement disturbed the berth, which it unclasped and rolled together. Upon the little table stood the water cask, and near it lay the remains of hard black bread, farther off the Bible, and a few spiritual songs. In another cell sat an infanticide; I saw her only through the small glass of the door, she had heard our steps, and our talking, but she sat still, cowered together in the corner by the door, as if she wished to