Mess Hall
The mess hall has been laid out so that the prisoners will sit at the table in the ordinary way, facing one another, with alternate wide aisles for service. Feeding the prisoners in a large mess hall has now been generally adopted in this country, and is infinitely better than the continental system of feeding them in the cell. Man is a gregarious animal, especially when his waywardness has landed him in prison, and the old systems, which aimed at the solitary confinement of the prisoner and tried to reform him by opposing all the things which were natural to him, were as stupid as they were cruel.
Over the mess hall is the auditorium, large enough for all, with two stairways so that the inmates from cell blocks 3 and 4 may be separated from those in cell blocks 1 and 2, and the connecting corridor has been divided by mesh grilles, so that these two general classifications which are very desirable may be maintained.