The Inspector of the Sixth Ward says: “There has been some improvement within the last few years--the cellar population having been perceptibly decreased, yet 496 persons still live in damp and unwholesome quarters under ground. In some of them water was discovered trickling down the walls, the source of which was sometimes traced to the courts and alleys, and sometimes to the soakage from the water-closets. The noxious effluvia always present in these basements are of a sickening character. Many of the cellars are occupied by two or three families; a number are also occupied as lodging-houses, accommodating from twenty to thirty lodgers. One, near the corner of Elm and Worth streets, is now fifteen or sixteen feet below the level of the street (the street having been raised ten feet). The lodging-house keeper complained to the Inspector that her business had fallen off some since the street was raised. As might be expected, the sickness rate is very high; rheumatic disease, fevers, strumous diseases, cholera infantum, etc., etc., running riot among the population. Indeed, in nearly every basement disease of some kind has been found peculiarly prevalent and fatal.” [Illustration: PLAN OF CELLAR IN THE SIXTEENTH WARD, 1865, OCCUPIED BY TWO FAMILIES, EACH WITH A DARK LIVING-ROOM, AND A DARK, DAMP DORMITORY] Another Inspector says: “At No. -- West Sixteenth Street, two families, in which are thirteen persons, occupy the basement. It is so dark that ordinary type can be seen with difficulty. In the other case the people were healthy before entering the basement; since, however, they have been ill; the mother has phthisis. Of twenty-four cellars, note of which has been made, four only were in good sanitary condition. The rest were more or less filthy, some indescribably so. One contained urine, bones, and soakage from the privy.” The Inspector of the Eighteenth Ward writes: “There are a few cellars so dark that one cannot see to read in them, unless by artificial light, except for a few hours in the day, by sitting close to the window; and there are many basement rooms into whose gloomy recesses not a single direct ray from the sun ever shone. The latter are, as a rule, by half their depth below the level of the street. Dark and damp, with very little chance for circulation of air, it would be difficult to imagine a human being more completely beyond reach of sanitary provisions. And when we consider that four large families often crowd this subterranean floor, no words are needed to show their condition deplorable. That a generally impaired vitality is promoted by living in this unnatural way, ‘a nameless, ever new disease,’ there can be no question; that these people will be especially prone to whatever form of prevailing sickness may be about in the community, no one can doubt; but whether there is any specific cause involved, capable of producing definite forms of disease, is more difficult to determine.”