The roads on the outskirts of all Colonial cities were very bad, and many of the less important streets of Philadelphia had neither pavements nor sidewalks. After rains shoes were bemired in walking, and as rubbers were then unknown it was necessary to remove the mud from the shoes before entering a house. Foot scrapers on the doorstep or at the foot of the front steps were a necessity and became ornamental adjuncts of the doorways of early Colonial homes. For the most part of wrought iron, some of the later ones were cast in molds, that at Wyck being a particularly interesting example. It consists of two grotesque griffins back to back, their wings joined tip to tip forming the scraper edge, and the whole being mounted in a large tray with turned-up edges. This scraper can thus be moved about as desired, and the tray catches the scrapings, which can be emptied occasionally without sweeping the entire doorstep. Some of the earlier and simpler scrapers, such as that at Third and Spruce streets, consisted merely of two upright standards with a sharp-edged horizontal bar between them to provide the scraper proper. This horizontal part was made quite broad to take care of anticipated wear, which in this particular instance has been great during the intervening years. Similar to this, except for the well-wrought tops of the standards and the curved supplementary supports, is the scraper of the Dirck Keyser doorway, Number 6205 Germantown Avenue, Germantown. Regarded as a whole this design suggests nothing so much as the back and arms of an early English armchair. On the same page with these is shown another strange Philadelphia scraper. Apart from its outline it has no decoration, and what the origin of the design may be it is difficult to determine. To a degree, however, it resembles two crude, ancient battle-axes, the handles forming the scraper bar. A favorite design consisted of a sort of inverted oxbow with the curved part at the top and the scraper bar taking some ornamental pattern across the bottom from side to side. At the top, both outside and inside the bow, and sometimes down the sides, spiral ornaments were applied in the Florentine manner. Accompanying illustrations show two scrapers of this type at Number 320 South Third Street and another one elsewhere on the same street. The use of a little urn-shaped ornament at the top of the latter scraper is most effective. At Number 239 Pine Street is seen a scraper employing two large spirals themselves as supports for the scraper bar. The turn of the spiral is here outward as contrasted with the inward turn of the scrapers at Upsala. A scraper of quaint simplicity standing on one central standard at Vernon, Germantown, suggests the heart as its motive, although having outward as well as inward curling spirals at the top.