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." In company with Captain Allaire and Detective Finn, the writer once made a tour of inspection through these establishments. One of them shall serve as a specimen. Descending through a rickety door-way, we passed into a room about sixteen feet square and eight feet high. At one end was a stove in which a fire burned feebly, and close by a small kerosene lamp on a table dimly lighted the room. An old hag, who had lost the greater part of her nose, and whose face was half hidden by the huge frill of the cap she wore, sat rocking herself in a rickety chair by the table. The room was more than half in the shadow, and the air was so dense and foul that I could scarcely breathe. By the dim light I could see that a number of filthy straw mattresses were ranged on the floor along the wall. Above these were wooden bunks, like those of a barracks, filled with dirty beds and screened by curtains. The room was capable of accommodating at least twenty persons, and I was told that the hag in the chair, who was the proprietress, was "a good hand at packing her lodgers well together." It was early, but several of the beds were occupied. The curtains were drawn in some cases, and we could not see the occupants. In one, however, was a child, but little more than a baby, as plump and ruddy, and as fair-skinned and pretty as though it had been the child of a lady of wealth. The little one was sleeping soundly, and, by a common instinct, we gathered about its bed, and watched it in silence. "It is too pretty a child for such a place," said one of the party. I glanced at Detective Finn. His face wore a troubled expression. "A man becomes hardened to the sights I see," he said in answer to my glance, "but I can scarcely keep the tears from my eyes when I see a child like this in such a place; for, you see, I know what a life it is growing up to."