PUBLIC OFFICES AND TREASURY GARDENS.
"Street-cars, or 'trams,' some drawn by horses and others by cables, run in every direction; and there are omnibuses, cabs, and other conveyances; so that one can go pretty nearly anywhere he chooses for a small amount of money. Some of the omnibuses remind us of the new ones in Paris, as they have three horses abreast, and dash along in fine style. Hansom and other cabs are numerous, and the fares are about a third more than in London; this is a great change from the days of the gold rush, when the most ordinary carriage could not be hired for less than £3 a day, and very often the drivers obtained twice or three times that amount. We have been told of a gold-digger just down from the mines of whom £12 was demanded one day for an afternoon's drive; he handed the driver a ten-pound note, and told him he would have to be satisfied with that—and he was.
TOWN-HALL, MELBOURNE.
"We went into three or four arcades, which form pleasant lounging and shopping places, like the famous 'passages' of Paris and the arcades of London. One of them is called the 'Book Arcade,' and is principally devoted to the sale of books; and if we may judge by the number of volumes we saw there, the people of Melbourne are liberal patrons of literature. No matter what the taste of a person might be in books, whether he desired a work of fiction or a treatise on science, a volume of travels or an exposition of Hindoo philosophy, he could be accommodated without delay. They have a public library here containing nearly one hundred and fifty thousand volumes, all of which can be read without charge.
"When we got back to the hotel and met the Doctor, it was time to sit down to breakfast. He had already received two invitations to dinner from gentlemen to whom he brought letters; they had heard of our arrival, and knowing we had been hospitably received in Sydney, were determined that we should be initiated at once into the courtesies of Melbourne, and start off with a favorable impression of the place.