Australian Town and Country Journal at KellyGang15/6/1872 (2)
In Spring-street are the Parliament buildings, unfinished, and the Treasury, an engraving of which appeared in this journal a few weeks ago. An elevated block of land here is called the Eastern Hill. It is remarkable for the number of places of worship and education erected on it. The principal churches; are St. Peter's, Church of England; St. Patrick's,, Roman Catholic cathedral, and the Presbyterian Church. The residence of the Catholic Bishop, the Scotch College, and the Catholic College, are also here.
Of parks and recreation grounds there are treble the number that the Sydney people have. I do not know the area of the Melbourne reserves, but there is a very largo quantity of ground taken up. The principal gardens and parks are the Fitzroy, Flagstaff, Carlton, Sudley, Royal, Fawker, and last; though principal, the Botanical Gardens. In the latter Melbourne seems to study usefulness, while Sydney seems to have aimed at beauty; also the suburbs of Melbourne are larger and more thickly populated than those of Sydney. The principal about Melbourne are Collingwood and Fitzroy (similar to Woolloomooloo), Hotham, North Melbourne, Richmond, South Yarra, Prahran, Hawthorn, St. Kilda, Brighton, Emerald Hill, and Sandridge.
A private railway company run trains to the seven places just named, from the foot of Elizabeth-street, The Government trains all leave for the country from Spencer-street. Melbourne is supplied with water from a reservoir called the Yan Yean, twenty-two miles distant.
The Corporation of the City of Melbourne is, acknowledged to be one of the best in the Australian colonies ft is only by comparison that one could justify this conclusion; and after an impartial investigation, I could not help being pleased with the system, the order, and intelligence with which everything is managed. The city is divided into seven wards, and the members of the corporation consist of the mayor, seven aldermen and twenty councillors; so, in reality, there are four representatives for each ward. The annual revenue from all sources is about £120,000.
Notwithstanding that the City Council of Melbourne are the best abused civic assembly in the colonies, judging from the almost daily denunciation of their acts by the Melbourne Press, 1 feel bound to repeat that they deserve great credit for the progress they have made towards the improvement of the city. Dirty sign-boards, ricketty verandahs, and pavements lilied with break-neck holes, are “pounced upon" and removed, consequently the streets are pleasant to walk through. The system of drainage being above ground, though open to some objections, is infinitely before the under ground drainage of those cities where all decomposed animal and vegetable matter can never be fully cleared out, and becomes most dangerous in warm weather to the health of the inhabitants. But it must not be supposed that the keeping the drainage of a large city in proper order is au easy task. The labour is seemingly Herculean.
The River Yarra Yarra, particularly the lower part, has its banks well taken up with factories, tanneries, bone dust, and other works, emitting no very pleasing perfumes to the olfactory nerves. Under the glorious privileges claimed for native industries, any attempt at prohibiting their killing people with noisome smells, raises a cry of indignation at this infringement on their rights, and is regarded as an attempt to stifle trade! Cleansing these Augean stables is a work of time. I am led to make these remarks by having before me a pile of papers containing elaborate and highly interesting reports on the health of the city, from the committee appointed to look after this, and also from the health officer and Government analytical chemist. On these intelligent inquiries and reports the council seem to have mainly based their operations.
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