Early Washington was more notable for mud than monuments. Charles Dickens visiting Washington in 1842 described "spacious avenues that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile long, that only want houses, roads, and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament." Anthony Trollope visiting 20 years later complained: "Massachusetts Avenue runs the whole length of the city, and is inserted on the maps as a full-blown street, about four miles in length. Go there, and you will find yourself not only out of town, away among the fields, but you will find yourself beyond the fields, in an uncultivated, undrained wilderness." He told visitors not to stray too far from Pennsylvania Avenue, yet "there were parts of Pennsylvania Avenue which would have been considered heavy ground by most hunting-men."

Today's city is cleaner, but its politicians may still need one of these: