New York City 1857

The mud . . . grows deeper and more like putty every hour. The people, finding indignation entirely ineffective, are trying to shame Ebling [the city official responsible for cleaning the streets] into a sense of duty. In scores of places, yesterday, they had piled the mud into tombs, mounds and graves, out of which the hats and boots of effigies protruded, and over the heaps placed inscriptions in shocking verse, commenting on the undiscovered virtues of Mayor Wood, and the wretched ineffciency of Ebling . . .