The modern prison is built on a simple plan. Roughly it may be described as two blocks of cells joined by a gable at each end and roofed over; a well being left between the blocks and lighted from the roof. All the cells have windows in the outer, and doors in the inner, walls. Balconies run round these inner walls, from which access is had to the cells in each flat. The cells in which the prisoners are confined are apartments measuring about 10 ft. by 7 ft. by 10 ft. high. The partitions and roofs of the cells are of whitewashed brickwork, and the floor of stone and asphalt. Each cell has a little window in the wall near the door glazed with obscured glass, and on the outside of these windows a gas bracket is placed. At night the cell is lit by this arrangement, which diminishes the amount of light and fixes its source in a corner. It is designed to prevent any person from attempting suicide by inhalation of gas; but in institutions where attempts at suicide are more likely to take place other means have been found to prevent the adoption of this method. It ensures that one hundred thousand people are inconvenienced in order that one may be prevented from ending his discomfort. There are other ways of breaking a walnut than crushing it with a steam-hammer. A prison cell does not contain much furniture. The bed is a wooden shutter hinged to the wall, so that it can be folded up during the day-time. When not in use the bedding is rolled together and placed in a corner of the apartment. Convicted male prisoners who are under sixty years of age are not allowed a mattress during the first thirty days of their imprisonment; they just lie on the board. I do not suppose that anybody imagines that a man is more likely to lead a new life if he is made to sleep on a bare board, than he would be if he were allowed a mattress. It is intended to hurt, and it will hurt the more sensitive in a greater degree than those of a coarser constitution. It is a part of the system, and will go with it when people wake up to the fact that it is a senseless thing to set about to irritate and annoy others. Of late years it has been discovered that prisoners were as little likely to escape if their cells were well lit as they would be their cells being ill lit. The windows have consequently been enlarged and nobody has been the loser. The cell at the best is not a place to inspire cheerfulness, but an effort has been made to make the place less bare. Some years ago a six-inch circle of glass was attached to the wall in many cells. The glass was of that variety that distorts everything seen through it when it is used for windows, and when it is silvered and converted into a mirror the effect is peculiar.