take place on public works in New South Wales. The truth is that most of the Australian colonies have spent far too much on 'talking-shops' and public buildings generally: a fact which they will begin to appreciate when all their leading statesmen, and the main part of their revenues, have gone to the Federal city—whatever its name is to be.
Government House, where Lord Hampden, son of the late Speaker of the House of Commons, has recently been succeeded by Lord Beauchamp, is a picturesque Elizabethan building, with a magnificent outlook, and beautiful grounds, stretching down to the water side. When, on a summer night, the gardens are lit up for some vice-regal fete, and one sees beneath, on the one hand, the illuminated hulls of the near ships in Farm Cove, and on the other the scores of little passenger launches rushing away from Circular Quay to the marine suburbs, the spectacle is satisfactorily brilliant, and has something of Venetian colour in it. The best of the public buildings in Sydney is the Chief Secretary's office, the exterior of which is decorated with statuary. The Town Hall is not merely the finest in Australia, but one of the largest in the world. It has a magnificent vestibule, and includes amongst its equipments one of the largest organs ever built. The Corporation of Sydney, though fortunate in its home, is not otherwise quite a happy family, and its affairs of late years have become so entangled that there is some talk of an inquiry by a Royal Commission.
The General Post-office is a very fine building, once disfigured by grotesque carvings, which were the laughingstock of Australia. They were an attempt, in the style of Mr Kruger's stone "topper," to apply up-to-date art to the representation of every-day Post-office business.
