ly
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.

Another clever device of Philadelphia ironworkers was to make the foot
scraper a part of the iron stair rail. Usually in such a scheme it was
also made part of the newel treatment on the lower step of the stoop,
but at Seventh and Locust streets, for example, it stands on the second
step beside and above the ornate round newel with its surmounting
pineapple. Here, as in the case of the simpler handrail in South Seventh
Street, one of the iron spindles of the rail is split about a foot from
the bottom, and the two halves bent respectively to the right and left
until they meet the next spindle on each side, the scraper bar of
ornamental outline being fastened across from one to the other of these
spindles below. The principal charm of the South Seventh Street rail
lies in its extreme simplicity, the twisted section of the spindles near
the bottom being a clever expedient. The pleasing effect of the design
at Seventh and Locust streets is largely due to appropriate use of the
evolute spiral band. Only a little more ornate than the South Seventh
Street stair rail is that in South Fourth Street. A special spiral
design above the foot scraper, however, virtually becomes a newel i