he stairways in the buildings are narrow and steep, and always were dark and foul; and smoke and coal gas from the defective chimney flues have discolored the walls and ceilings so that it is impossible to make them white. The roofs leak, causing the rooms to be wet. The plaster on the walls and ceilings is cracked in many places, and portions of it have fallen. The places around the sinks in the hall are constantly damp from the waste splash. The houses swarm with vermin throughout. Every room is damp and filled with air which is foul and unfit to breathe. There is no possible way in which the sun could shine into these buildings. The only sunlight which could approach them is that which at certain hours of the day filters down into this court eleven feet wide, along their front, but the rays of the sun which fall into that courtyard for a short time during the day cannot enter any of the rooms of the house, and are insufficient to properly light the lower floors, which are so dark that for a" large portion of the time artificial light has to be used in them, as might be expected. What little sunlight filters into this court is obstructed by the fire escapes along the front of the buildings, which are used for the deposit of various articles by the tenants. This has been the condition of these buildings for a long time. The population in May, 1896, was 115 men, women and children in the rear houses, and 150 in the front houses. Whereas the death certificates show that during the past six years the annual death rate in New York was 24 to 1,000 in these houses, the death rate was 45.87 to 1,000. The death rate in these buildings was considerably higher than the death rate in the ward, and the infant death rate was abnormally high, so that in one year more than one-third