Apart from this one point of ventilation, to the mind of the most casual visitor there can be no question that there is a great advantage in the privacy afforded by the outside cell. The doors are closed and the discipline and quiet of the prison are perfect. There are no cat calls through the night, nor is there the intolerable argument and vile language which are continually bandied back and forth in many American prisons, and particularly in our miserable county jails. This one thing, the lack of privacy, if there were no other, should condemn the inside cell system for all time. There is nothing in the suggestion frequently made that the outside cell is another name for solitary confinement, except where such a system is intentionally carried out, as formerly was the practice. [Illustration: TYPICAL CELL] As our modern prisons are administered, the men are fed in a general mess hall and not in the cell, and with the work on the farm and in the shops, and in the freedom which is now permitted in the recreation periods, there is not the slightest reason to feel that the inmate has anything to endure in the outside cell at all comparable to solitary confinement. In New York State the regulations of the State Commission of Prisons are very precise on one point, and that is that each cell must have a toilet and a wash-basin. At Westchester vertical shafts were constructed between each pair of cells to contain all the plumbing pipes for those fixtures. The basins are designed so that the prisoner may drink from the flow of water, which is from the outside of the bowl rather than the wall side, thereby doing away with the necessity of a cup. The closet is suspended, fastened to the wall and not the floor, and equipped with a vent connected to galvanized pipes and ducts which are controlled by an exhaust fan, there being one fan for each cell block. This is a simple and effective way of providing against the prisoner’s habit of closing his window in the winter. The toilet has been placed behind the wall of the utility duct and is screened in that position. In the usual type of the inside cell block the closet is placed squarely in front of the door, with no screen whatever, and no effort seems to have been made to give it any privacy. VENTILATION BY CELL DOORS