rooms. Others still are kept as lodging-houses,
where the poorest of the poor find shelter for the night.

In writing of these cellars, I wish it to be understood that I do not
refer to the rooms partly above and partly below the level of the
side-walk, with some chance of ventilation, and known to the Health
Officers as "basements," but to the cellars pure and simple, all of which
are sunk below the level of the street, and all of which are infinitely
wretched. There were in April, 1869, about 12,000 of these cellars known
to the Board of Health, and containing from 96,000 to 100,000 persons.
With the exception of 211, all of these were such as were utterly
forbidden, under the health ordinances of the city, to be used or rented
as tenements. The Board of Health have frequently considered the
advisability of removing this population, and have been prevented only by
the magnitude of the task, and the certainty of rendering this large
number of persons homeless for a time at least.

The larger portion of these cellars have but one entrance, and that
furnishes the only means of ventilation. They have no outlet to the
rear, and frequently the filth of the streets comes washing down the
walls into the room within. In the brightest day they are dark and
gloomy. The air is always foul. The drains of the houses above pass
within a few feet of the floor, and as they are generally in bad
condition the filth frequently comes oozing up and poisons the air with
its foul odors. In some cases there has been found a direct opening from
the drain into the cellar, affording a free passage for all the sewer gas
into the room. The Board of Health do all they can to remedy this, but
the owners and occupants of the cellars are hard to manage, and throw
every obstacle in the way of the execution of the health ordinances.

The rents paid for these wretched abodes are exorbitant. Dr. Harris, the
Superintendent of the Board of Health, states that as much as twenty
dollars per month is often demanded of the occupants by the owners. Half
of that sum would secure a clean and decent room in some of the up-town
tenements. The poor creatures, in sheer despair, make no effort to
better their condition, and live on here in misery, and often in vice,
until death comes to their relief.

[Picture: A FIVE POINTS LODGING CELLAR.]

Many of the cellars are used as lodging-houses. These are known to the
police as "Bed Houses."