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Sydney and Principal ToAvns. 



By Frakk J. DoNOHUE. 



The four cities of San Francisco, Cliicago, Melbourne, and Sydney 

 stand almost alone as examples of the rapid growth of towns of tlie 

 first rank under modern conditions. The cities of the old world are, 

 according- to the general rule, the result of centuries of the peaceful or 

 turbulent aggregation of human atoms, of growth in wealth, and of 

 expansion to meet the circumstances of national and urban life. The 

 cities named have no such long-drawn-out record behind them. In 

 the historical sense it is but as yester-year since Captain Phillip pitched 

 his tents at the head of the Tank Stream under primeval trees, and as 

 yesterday since the new population and the new era came in with the 

 gold discovery. To-day Sydney ranks as the third city in the empire, 

 estimating on the basis of the annual rating value. It has a population 

 of about 400,000 in the city itself and the congeries of suburbs imme- 

 diately surrounding it, a total capitalised value of ratable property 

 amounting to over £109,000,000 sterling*, and over 70,000 houses and 

 husiness premises, covering an area of about 91,000 acres. When it 

 is stated that the annual rating value of metrojDolitan property stands 

 at upwards of £6,600,000, and is nearly three times as great as that 

 of Birmingham, almost twice as much as that of Liverpool or Man- 

 chester and Salford, and about £2,500,000 above that of Glasgow, some 

 definite evidence is given of the wealth and expansion of a city which 

 has only been incorporated since 1842. 



Figures like these tell their own tale of progress and prosperity, and 

 it is as well to begin with such a definite starting-point as they suggest. 

 Although in point of population and wealth Sydney is not to be com- 

 pared with London, yet the visitor never fails to be struck with its 

 metropolitan air ; and for the same reasons as in the case of the city 

 on the Thames, though, of course, on a reduced scale. The population 

 of Sydney bears an even more disproportionate relation to that of the 

 rest of the country. The city itself is given up to business, so that on 

 Sundays and after nightfall the closed warehouses and comparatively 

 silent streets of what by day are among the busiest quarters strikingly 

 recall " the City " eastward of St. PauPs. The population is out of town 

 in the spreading suburbs that fringe the harbour or the ocean beaches, 

 or stretch away beyond Botany or towards Parraraatta and the distant 

 outlines of the Blue Mountains, or cluster along the highlands of the 

 northern railway-line. Here the people of the metropolis make their 

 homes, withdrawing more and more as time goes on from the city 

 proper. Like it, each suburb may be said to have its own municipal 

 establi.shraent, controlling local affairs, and supervising the expenditure 

 of rates to the best interests of the suburbs and its residents. Hand- 



