r
the several divisions of the Post-Office proper, but also for the
savings bank, the money-order department, and that of the telegraph, all
which are under the control of the Government. Spacious as the original
design of the structure was, the business transacted in it has already
outgrown its capacity, so that more room is now imperatively demanded.
Additions are consequently making by extending the rear of the building,
while at the same time the tower is being raised and a story added to
the whole edifice.

The author does not pretend to describe the many public buildings of
Melbourne, but briefly to mention such as most impressed him. Among
these were the Town Hall, on the corner of Elizabeth and Collins
streets,--a very large and solid building in the Renaissance style,
erected in 1867, containing among numerous other rooms designed for
municipal use the Executive Chamber, and one remarkable apartment
capable of seating over five thousand persons. In this hall is a grand
organ which is acknowledged to be the fifth largest in the world,--a
noble and costly instrument of exquisite harmony and great power, a full
description of which was given to us with much patient courtesy. The
Town Hall is four stories high, and has office room for all the various
branches of the city business, with ample accommodations for civic
ceremonies.

Collins Street is the fashionable boulevard of the city, though Burke
Street nearly rivals it in gay promenaders and elegant shops. To make a
familiar comparison, the latter is the Broadway, the former the Fifth
Avenue, of Melbourne. On the upper part of Burke Street there is a
covered market consisting of two spacious floors occupying an acre and
more of ground, which we visited in the early morning. The confused
variety of articles and lines of goods here offered for sale was really
ludicrous, recalling a similar display witnessed at Warsaw, in Poland,
near the Saxony Gardens, though it lacked entirely the element of
picturesqueness there so prominent. Here were displayed side by side
dry-goods and green fruit, crockery ware and millinery, flowers and
meats, clothing and jewelry, boots, shoes, and poultry, singing-birds
and underwear. Indeed, what was there not to be had here for a price? A
mile and more away from this, up Elizabeth Street, the regular vegetable
and meat market was found. Here several acres were covered by sheds open
at the sides, where country produce was offered at wh