If any of my readers should ever be inclined to investigate a very miserable quarter of the city, let them go down to our "Corlear's Hook," so infamous twenty years ago for murders and terrible crimes, and then wind about among the lanes and narrow streets of the district. Here they will find every available inch of the ground made use of for residences, so that each lot has that poisonous arrangement, a "double house," whereby the air is more effectually vitiated, and a greater number of human beings are crowded together. From this massing-together of families, and the drunken habits prevailing, it results very naturally that the children prefer outdoor life to their wretched tenements, and, in the milder months, boys and girls live a _dolce far niente_ life on the docks and wood-piles, enjoying the sun and the swimming, and picking up a livelihood by petty thieving and peddling. Sometimes they all huddle together in some cellar, boys and girls, and there sleep. In winter they creep back to the tenement-houses, or hire a bed in the vile lodgings which are found in the Ward. They grow up, naturally, the wildest little "Topseys" and "Gavroches" that can be found. Ragged, impudent, sharp, able "to paddle their canoe" through all the rapids of the great city--the most volatile and uncertain of children; today in school, to-morrow miles away; many of them the most skillful of petty thieves, and all growing up to prey on the city. In the midst of this quarter we found an old Public School building--a dilapidated old shell--which we hired and refitted. It had the especial advantage of being open to air and light on four sides. We soon transformed it into one of the most complete and attractive little agencies of instruction and charity which ever arose in the dark places of a crowded metropolis. We struck upon a superintendent--Mr. G. Calder--who, with other good qualities, had the artistic gift--who, by a few flowers, or leaves, or old engravings, could make any room look pleasing. He exerted his talent in embellishing this building, and in making a cheerful spot in the midst of a ward filled with rookeries and broken-down tenements. In the bit of a back yard he created a beautiful garden, with shrubbery and flowers, with vases and a cool shaded seat--and these in a place of the size of a respectable closet. There a poor child could stand and fancy herself, for a moment, far away in the country, Thence, on a spring morning, drowning the prevalent smells of bilge-water and sewers, ascended the sweet odors of hyacinth and heliotrope, sweet-william and violet. Above, in the school-rooms and the lodging-rooms, these sweet flowers were scattered about, taming and refining, for the time, the rough little subjects who frequented them. Soon a novel reward was proposed, and the best children in the School were allowed to take a plant home with them, and, if they brought it back improved in a few months, to receive others as a premium; so that