height about
ninety feet. There is to be a central tower 120 feet high, and two towers
with spires which will rise to a height of 260 feet. The Anglican
Cathedral, though not large, is a handsome building with two towers, in
fourteenth-century Gothic. The Post Office will for many years remain a
fragment of what may or may not be a handsome building. The Town Hall has
evidently been built with the idea of at all hazards making it larger
than the Melbourne Town Hall. So far it is a success. But architecturally
it is nothing more than a splendid failure--over-decorated and
ginger-bready. Curiously enough it is built upon the site of the
burial-place of the early settlement---forming a sort of Westminster
Abbey for the first settlers. There are four theatres, but none well
fitted or decorated. Palatial hospitals and asylums of course abound, but
the Parliament House is wretchedly small.

Unfortunately Sydney has very few reserves, and those few she keeps in
bad order, with the exception of the Botanical Garden, situated on an arm
of the land almost entirely surrounded by water. It is the most charming
public garden I have ever seen; inferior to that of Adelaide in detail,
but superior in the _tout ensemble_. Almost equally beautiful is the
situation of Government House, a comfortable Tudor mansion, but rather
small for purposes of entertainment.

Amongst the commercial buildings, the new head offices of the Australian
Mutual Provident Society are pre-eminent. They cost no less than L50,000.
The banks are not equal to either the Melbourne or the Adelaide banks.
But the insurance offices, warehouses, etc., though not nearly as
numerous, are quite up to the Melbourne standard in size, although for
the reasons already given they do not show to so great an advantage as
their merit deserves. Of the appearance of the shops I have already
written in my letter about Melbourne. They are not so fine as in
Melbourne nor so well stocked, and are pretty much on a level with those
in an English town of the same size.

The names of the principal streets proclaim the age of the town. George
Street and Pitt Street are the two main thoroughfares, and there are
Castlereagh, Liverpool, and William Streets, while King, Hunter, Bligh,
Macquarie, and Philip Streets, and Darlinghurst preserve the names of the
first governors. The suburbs first formed preserve the sweet-sounding
native names--Wooloomooloo, Woolahra, Coogee, Bondi. Of a later date