What he had to face in his effort to launch the city afresh can hardly be conceived by an observer of to-day. Although ten years had elapsed since the outbreak of the great war of which Washington was the focal center, local conditions had improved but slightly upon those described toward the close of the previous chapter. The road-bed of Pennsylvania Avenue had received a pavement of wood, which was fast going to pieces. A single square in Vermont Avenue was surfaced with a coal-tar product that had proved its unfitness. A few other streets had been spread with a thick coat of gravel, which, as it was gradually ground down, filled the air with fine grit whenever the wind blew. The rest of the highways were either paved with cobblestones or left in their primitive dirt, which became nearly impassable in very wet weather for mud, and in very dry weather for dust. It was not uncommon for a heavy vehicle like a fire-engine to get stalled when it most needed to hurry, and to avoid this contingency the engines sometimes ran over the sidewalk. In the northwestern quarter, now so attractive, the marshes were undrained, and the people forced to live there suffered tortures from chills and fever. There was no efficient system of scavenging, but swine were kept in back yards of dwellings to devour the kitchen refuse. Poultry and cattle roamed freely about the vacant lots in thinly settled neighborhoods. There were several open sewers; and the street sweepings, including offal of a highly offensive sort, were dumped on the common south of Pennsylvania Avenue and strewn over the plots set apart for lawns.
Because Shepherd foresaw the hostility he would excite by his program of reforms, and that what he did must therefore be done quickly, he crowded into three years what might well have consumed twenty. To save time and cut red tape, he awarded contracts to friends whom he believed to be as much in earnest as he was--a practice which of course laid him open to accusations of favoritism; he experimented with novel materials and methods, many of which proved ill-adapted to his needs; and his expenditures reached figures which surprised even him when he found leisure to foot up his debit page. But he shirked nothing because of the danger or trouble it might involve for himself, and his opponents had to lie awake nights to outwit him.