DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF VICTORIA   

Atlas Page 41
By James Smith

MELBOURNE - THE CITY 3....

The site of the General Post Office, at the north-east corner of Bourke and Elizabeth. Streets, was previously occupied by a structure erected in primitive and pastoral times. It was squat and shabby, inconspicuous and inconvenient, constructed of weatherboard, and it consisted of one storey only. It was haunted by rats; and a pool of stagnant water, which had accumulated underneath the building, told so disastrously on the health of the officials, that promotion was comparatively rapid in that department of the public service. A small cupola, containing a clock, rose a few feet above the low roof on the south or Bourke Street side of the edifice, and along the street frontage was a not very broad verandah, slightly elevated above the footpaths, and standing a little way back. This verandah was applied to more uses than those for which it was originally intended. It was a place of rendezvous for friends and a lounge for vagrants. Tramps would select it as a dormitory during the summer months, and it shared with the old Eastern Market the distinction of being selected as a tribune by popular orators, whence they fulminated their denunciations of the more prosperous classes, who were solemnly arraigned for the high crime and misdemeanour of having been lucky, or clever, or frugal. In the early days, all newcomers had their letters from the old country directed to them at the Melbourne Post Office, and when the monthly mail arrived, the verandah and its approaches were thronged. No sooner were the slides at the delivery windows lifted, than a scene of confusion and excitement ensued.. Men’s eyes glistened and their hands trembled as they grasped the letters whose superscription was so familiar to them, every character of the direction associating itself with the writers, and with the scenes in the midst of which they were written. Few of the recipients exercised a greater amount of patience or self control, before reading their letters, than was involved in crossing the street and seeking out some quiet corner in which to tear open the envelope and devour what it enclosed. But there ere disappointed applicants in the crowd who refused to believe there were no letters for them; they importuned the distributors to look again and again in the pigeon-hole bearing the initial letters of their names, and discontented with reiterated assurances 1 hat the whole of the mail had been assorted, seemed unwilling to quit the window, looking with envious eyes upon the more fortunate inquirers for correspondence, and moving tardily away with dejection written on their countenances and reluctance expressed in every movement of their legs. To-day a massive edifice of many storeys the western frontage of which extends from Bourke Street to Little Bourke Street, receives and distributes upwards of thirty-three million letters and fifteen million newspapers, per annum, and is in communication with about fourteen hundred branch offices and more than four hundred telegraph stations. A flight of steps gives access to a lofty corridor fading the south and west; the columns and modillions of the arched colonnade are of the Doric order, the Ionic being employed on the second and the Corinthian on the third storey. Between the latter and the balustraded parapet some panelling has been introduced to give additional elevation to the mass; and a mansard roof, pierced with dormer windows, augments its altitude. At the south-west angle a lofty clock tower, effectively treated, attains a sufficient height to enable the signal flag upon its summit to be visible within a wide radius of the building.

From this point, Bourke Street West makes a somewhat steep ascent to its intersection with Queen Street, and, looking back, the eye takes in a lengthened vista, terminating in the portico of the Parliament Houses, behind which will presently arise a dome bearing a general resemblance to that of the Invalides in Paris, and equally well-proportioned; while, unlike that, it springs from an ample base, and thus gains in dignity and fair proportion. Viewed at any hour of the day, the scene presented by the thronged thoroughfare is full of animation and variety. This is more especially the case in the eastern section of the street, which lies half in sun and half in shade, the footpaths on the southern side being screened from the light and heat by verandahs; while the buildings opposite project promontories of shadow of irregular dimensions across the broad and busy highway. The western section of Bourke Street, particularly that part stretching between Elizabeth Street and Queen Street, maintains a decidedly sporting character. Here congregate the saddlers, harness makers and farriers, and here, too, are the numerous horse bazaars resonant with the clatter of iron-shod hoofs, the cracking of whips, the hum of bidders discussing the "points" of the horses put up for sale, and the stentorian voice of the auctioneer ringing through the vaulted mews. It is after nightfall, however, that Bourke Street presents itself under its most picturesque aspect. The footpaths are fringed with a long festoon composed of glittering points of yellow light, with here and there a luminous globe of whiter radiance from the electric burners outside the theatres, while the lamps of the waggonettes and the private carriages, rapidly moving up and down the street, might be mistaken for a flight of fire flies, and the great moon-like lanterns and reflectors of the tram cars, approaching in rapid succession, shed a broad glare upon the road before them.

At the junction of Bourke Street West with Queen Street, a solid block of offices, four storeys high and built in the Italian style, occupies a commanding position at the south-east angle of the intersection. Proceeding westward, the first conspicuous building to attract the eye is the establishment of the firm of Dalgetty, Blackwood and Co., the facade of which is a pleasing example of the transitional period of Renaissance architecture; the material red brick, the windows mullioned and transomed, the intervening pilasters, the friezes, cornices and decorative panels representing freestone; the triple gables and central bay window contributing materially to the artistic character of the whole design. Opposite is the Grecian portico of the Jewish Synagogue, close to St. Patrick’s Hall with its rustic basement and Corinthian facade. In the latter building the first Legislative Council of Victoria held its sittings, and here were laid the foundations of the political liberties of the colony by the statesmen who framed its Constitution Act.

The extensive wool stores of Goldsbrough and Co. occupy a large area of ground at the north-east corner of Bourke and William Streets, while the opposite angle is taken up by Menzies’ Hotel —one of the finest buildings of the kind in Melbourne, and with an extensive frontage to William Street. Some little distance down this street, at the corner of Chancery Lane, is the Australian Club, erected in the Italian style of architecture. It is a building of four storeys, surmounted by a mansard roof, from the summit of which, owing to its great elevation, a commanding view can be obtained of Melbourne and its suburbs. The approach to the club is through a coffered and vaulted porch, with Sicilian marble dado and inlaid marble floor; it leads to a tiled vestibule giving access to the principal apartments of the establishment, What the Melbourne Club is to the squatters, the Australian Club is to the professional and mercantile classes. It already has a large membership, and its convenient position has made it a favourite place of resort.

Retracing his steps along Queen Street in a northerly direction, the visitor presently arrives at the Law Courts, or Palace of Justice, covering a block of land three hundred feet square, surrounded by four streets and having entrances from each. Previous to the recent erection of this extensive pile of buildings, the Supreme Court held its sittings in a small wooden structure near the gaol in Latrobe Street, the inferior courts transacting their business in equally unsuitable premises situated in other parts of the city. All of them were inadequate and incommodious, oppressively hot in the summer and unpleasantly cold in the winter, and so badly ventilated as to be injurious to the health of judges, juries, barristers and witnesses. Moreover, the accommodation they afforded was altogether incommensurate with the magnitude of the business which had to be judicially dealt with, and the Government accordingly resolved on the construction of an edifice large enough to contain the whole of the courts, eight in number, together with the offices of the various functionaries connected with the administration of the law in its higher jurisdiction. The two principal facades of the palace face north and west, the main entrance being in the centre of the west front. The style of architecture adopted is the Classic as modified by Italian influences. Plenty of variety has been obtained in the lines by means of a projecting portico, a double arcade with Doric columns on the basement and Ionic above, and by the prominence given to the two wings; and the parapets have been treated so as to conduce to, the same result. Internally, the building is a labyrinth of echoing corridors and bewildering pas sages, staircases, rotundas and vestibules; so that it has been found necessary to erect a finger post at each of the numerous four-course ways for the guidance of strangers who might other wise wander about the maze for hours in distressing perplexity of mind. The outer shell of the edifice encloses a quadrangle one hundred and thirty six feet wide; in the centre is a tower-like structure, circular in form but throwing out four semi-octagonal and equidistant chambers, which serve as the receptacles of the Supreme Court Library. The intervening space is domed, with a gallery running round it, having niches in the wall to receive the busts of distinguished ornaments of the Bench. Those of Chief Justice Sir William Stawell and the late Sir Redmond Barry are already in situ. Outside this dome is the drum of a larger one, rising to the height of a hundred feet from the ground, and supported by a circular colonnade sufficiently detached from the drum to admit of the introduction of an open gallery accessible from below. The dome itself is somewhat depressed, so that at a distance it bears a certain resemblance to a magnified dish-cover. From its summit, the spectator commands a view of the whole city and of all its suburbs, excepting those portions of Collingwood and Richmond which are concealed from sight by the Eastern Hill. Looking in that direction, he sees the upward curve of the three great arteries of traffic from east to west, namely, Lonsdale, Bourke and Collins Streets, most of the ecclesiastical and nearly all the more important of the public buildings of Melbourne embracing St. Francis’ Cathedral, the Wesleyan, Congregational and Scotch churches, the Public Library and Museum, the General Post. Office and the Town Hall; and on the high ridge in the middle distance, the Exhibition Building, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and the Houses of Parliament; while —beyond the green heights of Studley Park —Kew, Hawthorn, and Camberwell have for their background the dark mass of the Dandenong Ranges. Southward the eye is carried past the watchtower of the fire brigade, and ranges over the Protestant Cathedral, the windings of the river Yarra, the undulating uplands covered by the suburbs of South Yarra and Toorak, Government House and the fair domain by which it is surrounded, the Botanical Gardens, the Observatory, the Fawkner and Albert Parks, St. Kilda, South Melbourne, with the campanile of its town hall rising high above the neighbouring buildings, the Bay, stretching away to the dimly defined horizon, and Port Melbourne, leading the vision round to the western outlook. This comprehends the lower Yarra and the harbour improvements, Williamstown and the shipping at its moorings, the suburbs of Newport, Footscray, Kensington, and the Racecourse, with the You Yangs in the far distance. In the foreground are enormous wool warehouses and equally enormous breweries, iron-foundries resounding with the clang of hammers, monumental chimneys vomiting clouds of black smoke, and acres upon acres of corrugated iron roofs covering the platforms, engine sheds, workshops and other appurtenances of the Spencer Street railway station. To the northward the eye takes in Hotham, Flemington and Carlton; with the Melbourne University, the Wilson Hall, and Ormond College as the chief architectural features of the prospect, which is agreeably diversified by the bosky verdure of the Flagstaff Gardens and the old Cemetery, with the Royal Park beyond, and Mount Macedon closing in the view in one direction, as the Plenty Ranges bound it in another.

Looking down from this elevation upon the railway terminus in Spencer Street, the spectator is struck by the magnitude of the area which it covers, and the mean, fragile and unworthy character of the station buildings and their adjuncts. Considering that a traffic of fifteen hundred miles —bringing in a revenue of two million sterling, accruing from the annual transport of thirty million passengers, and of upwards of two million tons of merchandise and live stock —has to be administered from this centre, the stranger is disposed to censure the Government of Victoria for permitting the continued existence of such a discreditable eyesore. Plans have, however, been prepared and approved for the erection of a block of buildings ninety feet high, with a frontage of four hundred and twenty feet to Spencer Street. It will cost one hundred thousand pounds sterling, but it will contain one hundred and fifty-six apartments, and will provide accommodation for the whole of the offices of the Department. It is proposed to construct the edifice in the Italian style, of brick faced with stucco, with a rusticated basement and first floor the two upper storeys to be enriched with Doric and Corinthian pilasters; a mansard roof is to be carried to a considerable height above an effectively treated cornice and balustraded parapet. The execution of this design is arrested, for the present, by the discussions which have arisen with respect to the extension of the city westward; some of the schemes projected for such a purpose involving the transfer of the terminus to another locality and the conversion of a large portion of the area now covered by the station into building sites, in connection with a prolongation of five of the thoroughfares which are now stopped by an impasse in that direction.

Before quitting the Palace of Justice, it may be interesting to note that it stands upon the site formerly occupied by the old Government House —a plain, two-storey structure, built of light granite, and containing about a dozen rooms of modest dimensions. From the open space around it, an uninterrupted view was at that time obtained of the country to the northward and westward, and it also commanded the whole of the Bay, together with the villages which had been formed upon its shores.

Passing the West Melbourne Presbyterian Church, with its unfinished tower, and crossing Little Lonsdale Street, the visitor arrives at the Royal Mint, which fills the whole of the frontage between the last-named thoroughfare and Latrobe Street. The area thus covered forms part of what was originally an extensive reserve; in the centre of this was erected, as far back as the year 1853, a structure of glass and iron —a miniature copy of the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park —which was designed to serve the purposes of the first Industrial Exhibition held in Melbourne. It was applied to the same uses in 1861, and was also the scene of many municipal and other festivities, as well as of lectures and public meetings. In 1864, the Legislature of Victoria memorialised the Imperial Government in favour of establishing branch of the Royal Mint in Melbourne; and in August, 1869, royal proclamation was issued declaring gold coins minted in Victoria a legal tender in all parts of Her Majesty’s dominions, and the necessary steps were taken for the erection of a branch in Melbourne accordingly. This was opened in June, 1872, since which date upwards of eight million two hundred and twenty thousand ounces of gold have been received and coined in the institution. The buildings enclose a spacious quadrangle, in the centre of which is a fountain surrounded by a grass plot, planted in order to lessen the risks of injury by dust to which the delicate machinery of the Mint is exposed. Entering the premises through a portico, forming part of a facade stately in its simplicity and harmonious proportions, the visitor perceives on his right the bullion office, in which the raw gold is received, weighed, registered and paid for; he is then conducted through the various departments of the Mint, and afforded an opportunity of seeing the consecutive processes of melting, assaying, refining by chlorine, rolling the bars into fillets, passing these through the "drag bench" so as to give: them uniformity of thickness, cutting them into eighteen-inch lengths, punching out the blank discs destined for conversion into coin, submitting them to the machine-trial press, cleansing them from grease and dirt in a series of washing tanks, weighing them in automatic balances so exquisitely adjusted as to denote variations as minute as the hundredth part of a grain, ringing them so as to ascertain that they are flawless, passing them through an edge compressor, softening them by, annealing, and subjecting them to a pressure of fifteen tons in the coining presses, where the lateral expansion imprints the milling on the edge by means of the steel collar surrounding the dies. Some highly ingenious and valuable improvements in the machinery of coining have been invented and introduced by officials employed in the different departments of this, colonial branch of the Royal Mint. All the gold is weighed into and weighed out of the melting house and its adjuncts, and if any losses occur, which is very rarely the case, they have to be made good by those through whose hands the precious metal has passed.

A little way beyond the Mint, on the opposite side of William Street, are the Flagstaff Gardens. Thirty years ago this spot was a bare and isolated hill, so remote from the limits of the city that to visit the place was regarded in the light of a country walk. In a cottage on the summit, a man was stationed, whose duty it was to notify by a system of flag signals the names of vessels arriving at the Heads and the ports whence they had sailed; the information having been telegraphed by semaphore. Not far off, a dilapidated fence served to mark the diminutive burying ground, in which

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

For such in reality they were; and above their nameless graves a stone cross was erected in 1871, in order to mark the last resting place of the pioneers of what was then vaguely, called "The Settlement." The Corporation of Melbourne has caused the old Flagstaff Hill to be reserved as a public park; has planted it with trees, laid it out in parterres of flowers and spaces of green sward, set up in it east’s from antique statues, ornamented it with fountains, and from a sanitary and recreative point of view, transformed an arid waste into a sylvan retreat of no little value, in a neighbourhood the atmosphere of which is already darkened with the smoke of innumerable chimney shafts.

The north-east angle of the Flagstaff Gardens approaches closely to the south-western corner of the old cemetery, long since disused as a place of interment, except under special circumstances. At the period previously spoken of this burying ground was completely detached from the town; to-day it is a city of the dead, surrounded by the habitations of the living —a silent memorial of the past in the midst of the noisy activities of the present —the last resting place of the first generation of the citizens of Melbourne.

From this restful enclosure, where the long grass waves over the green hillocks, and the fibrous rootlets of trees and shrubs, planted by pious hands, "net the dreamless heads" of those who sleep below, it is only a few steps to the Telephone Exchange in Wills Street; this may be likened to the cerebellum of the social and commercial system of the busy city, with its afferent and efferent nerves ramifying in all directions, and incessantly receiving and transmitting messages from and to every portion of the vital organism. In an airy and spacious chamber on the first floor, ten or a dozen young girls are stationed at the apparatus, which is in communication with a thousand private telephones in Melbourne and its suburbs; and during business hours there is an almost continuous demand upon the quick ears and nimble fingers of the attendants, from subscribers wishing to be "switched on" to the lines of communication or conversational purposes with other subscribers. There is a lull in the work of the Exchange during the hour of luncheon, and a rapid decline after four o’clock; but it is never wholly suspended, and operators are in attendance all night long, for the leading medical practitioners are in telephonic rapport with some of their patients; and the necessity may also arise in the course of the night for the watchmen in charge of banks and mercantile establishments to place themselves in prompt communication with the nearest police station or with the fire brigade.

Turning down Latrobe Street, the visitor, on reaching Swanston Street, finds himself in front of the pile of buildings, covering nearly two acres of ground, devoted to the purposes of a Public Library, Museum and National Gallery. The facade when completed will consist of five divisions, erected in the Corinthian style of architecture, the columns and pilasters standing in stylobate; the central portico, crowned by a handsome pediment and approached by two flights of steps, forms an imposing feature of the general design. The wings, rising to a height of fifty-two feet from the ground, and composed partly of moulded panelling and partly of balusters, are surmounted by a parapet. Of the original plan, conceived on a scale of magnitude suggested by a sagacious forecast of the future importance of Melbourne, the northern, eastern and central portions remain to be executed. The foundation stone of the institution was laid by Sir Charles Hotham on the 3rd of July, 1854, and that portion of the Library which received the name of the Queen’s Reading-room was opened by Sir Henry Barkly on the 24th of May, 1859. Additions continued to be made from time to time, and the most important of these, the Barry Hall —so named in honour of Sir Redmond Barry, who was largely instrumental in the foundation of the Public Library —was opened by Sir Henry Loch on the 2nd of September, 1886. Space has thus been afforded for the reception of upwards of one hundred and ten thousand volumes of books, besides seventy thousand pamphlets and serial publications. The number of visitors exceeds half a million per annum, more than three-fifths of whom resort to the Library, which occupies the whole of the first floor of the shell of the building and is lofty enough to admit of the introduction of galleries, so as to augment the wall space for books as well as the accommodation for readers. There are no restrictions on the admission of the latter, and they enjoy the freest access to all the books in the collection, excepting such as possess an exceptional value, either on account of their rarity or of their costly character. Open from nine in the morning until ten in the evening, and illuminated after dark by the electric light, the Library is extremely popular as a place of resort, although it is to be feared a not inconsiderable number of its frequenters use it as a lounge, and amuse themselves by reading works of a frivolous character only. In a rotunda on the ground floor is a newspaper room containing files of most of the Australasian papers, and this is also largely frequented. To the right and left of an entrance hall fifty feet square are the galleries of sculpture, containing casts from the masterpieces of Grecian and Roman plastic art, and a small collection of marble statues and busts by contemporary or recent sculptors. Under the Barry Hall is what has been termed the South Kensington division of the Museum. Independently of a large assemblage of objects of an ethnotypical character, it includes specimens of glass and ceramic ware, ivory and wood carvings, bronzes, enamels and metal work, of different countries and different epochs, illustrative of the history of the arts as applied to the higher branches of industry. Out of this part of the building, the visitor passes into the Technological Museum, filling the whole of a spacious but temporary edifice, erected, together with some annexes now used as schools of drawing and painting, in connection with the first Intercolonial Exhibition held in Melbourne, in the year 1866. A make-shift vestibule, hung with engravings, photographs and drawings, conducts the visitor to the Picture Gallery, which measures one hundred and sixty-five feet long by forty feet wide, with a height of thirty feet to the cornice; in this is contained a collection of oil paintings and water-colour drawings by modern artists belonging to the English, French, German, Belgian and Italian schools. The National Gallery and the School of Painting connected with it are under the direction of Mr. G. F. Folingsby; and a students’ exhibition is held yearly, at which prizes of the aggregate value of one hundred pounds sterling are distributed, and a gold medal is awarded once in three years to the student most worthy of it. This carries a Travelling Scholarship of one hundred and fifty pounds per annum, tenable for three years, conditionally on the holder proceeding to Europe and pursuing his studies in one of the great art schools of the Continent. Besides the oil paintings and watercolour drawings just referred to, the National Gallery contains a very large collection of photographs, photo-lithographs and engravings, including some curious views of early Melbourne.

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