Work in solitude means that the prisoner is shut up in an apartment by himself which is called his cell.  Each cell is provided with an adequate supply of air and light, and is heated in the winter up to a sufficiently high temperature for health and comfort.  The cell contains a bed and other personal requisites; it also contains a copy of the prison rules.  Before the prisoner is finally allocated to a certain cell he is seen by all the superior officers of the prison.  His state of health is inquired into, so as to determine the nature of his work, and if he is not too old to learn, and has received a sentence of sufficient length to make it worth while instructing him, his educational capabilities are specially tested.  The seclusion of the cell is varied by a short service in the prison chapel every morning and an hour’s exercise in the forenoon.  It is further varied in the case of young boys by daily attendance at the prison school.

The cellular system is an application of the old monastic system to the treatment of criminals.  The first cellular prison was built in Rome by Pope Clement XI. at the commencement of the eighteenth century; its design was taken from a monastery.  The idea passed from Rome to the Puritans of Pennsylvania; and it has now taken root in all parts of the civilised world.  The believers in the cellular system say that it prevents prisoners from contaminating each other; it prevents the hardened criminal from getting hold of the comparative novice; according to this system, although the offender is in a prison, the only persons he is permitted to speak to are those whose lives are free from crime.  A prison system which has the negative value of hindering men from becoming worse is worthy of high consideration, and if the chief object of imprisonment is the punishment of criminals the cellular system will not be easily surpassed.  On the other hand, if the purpose of imprisonment is not only to punish but also to prepare the offender for the duties of society, the system of solitary confinement will not effectually accomplish this task.  On this point let me refer to the words of M. Prins, the eminent Director General of Belgian prisons:  “Can we teach a man sociability,” he says, “by giving him a cell only, that is to say, the opposite of social life, by taking away from him the very appearance of moral discipline; by regulating from morning till night the smallest details of his day, all his movements and all his thoughts?  Is not this to place him outside the conditions of existence, and to unteach him that liberty for which we pretend he is being prepared?...  Assuredly, let us not forget that prisons contain incorrigible and corrupt recidivists, the residuum of large towns who must undoubtedly be isolated from other men; but they also contain offenders resembling in great part men of their own class living outside....  If it was a question of making these men good scholars, good workmen, good soldiers, should we accept the