The preparations for rebuilding the city were begun before the smoldering ruins had ceased to glow. The designs of the Capitol and other public buildings were somewhat altered, but the White House, under the supervision of Hoban, the original architect, was reared on the old walls--almost a replica of the former mansion. Although the reconstruction was begun immediately, there was a continuation of the old difficulties. The question of removing the capital again became an issue, and continually hampered the work of rebuilding. However, the old buildings were slowly replaced, new ones were constructed, and the Government was soon comfortably housed. But the city itself developed with woeful languor. The few attempts to beautify it failed. By 1860, there were but two or three miles of poorly constructed pavements. Most of the streets were worse than country roads. In summer the dust rose in clouds and blinded and choked those who ventured forth, while in winter the mud was so deep that at times the streets were well-nigh impassable. Until 1862 there were no street railways. Charles Dickens, who was a visitor to Washington during its period of struggle and reconstruction, drew this startling picture of the capital: “Take the worst parts of the City Road and Pentonville, or the straggling outskirts of Paris, where the houses are smallest, preserving all their oddities, but especially the small shops and dwellings, occupied in Pentonville (but not in Washington) by furniture-brokers, keepers of poor eating-houses, and fanciers of birds. Burn the whole down; build it up again in wood and plaster; widen it a little; throw in part of St. John’s Wood; put green blinds outside all the private houses, with a red curtain and a white one in every window; plough up all the roads; plant a great deal of coarse turf in every place where it ought not to be; erect three handsome buildings in stone and marble, anywhere, but the more entirely out of everybody’s way the better; call one the Post Office, one the Patent Office, and one the Treasury; make it scorching hot in the morning and freezing cold in the afternoon, with an occasional tornado of wind and dust; leave a brick-field without the bricks in all central places where a street may naturally be expected; and that’s Washington.” [Illustration: GRAND STAIRCASE IN THE HALL OF THE CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY.]