SYDNEY AND PRINCIPAL TOWNS. 267 



tlie cleai' air against the coul grecu shadows heyond. From rustic 

 seats under shady trees one gets vistas of green distance framed in 

 leaves^ or sharply cnt off by a brown shaft that ilowers out overhead 

 into a canopy of palm, or set aside from the rest by the Japanesque 

 tracery of the reedy stems of far Eastern bamboos. All this suggests 

 a wonderful variety ; and it is claimed, indeed, for the Sydney Gardens 

 that they contain a larger variety of ])lants growing out of doors than 

 the famous collection at Kew, and probably the most complete in the 

 W'Orld. The curator, Mr. Charles Moore, has spent nearly fifty years 

 at his post, having been selected by Lord Grey in 181-7. During his 

 time most of the improvements have been made. The first harvest 

 was reaped on the farm here the year after the Colony was founded. 

 In 1816 it first received its present name, and vines and fruit-trees 

 were cultivated up to about 1850. The Lower Gardens were reclaimed 

 ten years later, while the circular sea-wall dates from about 1865. A 

 complete botanical arrangement has been carried out in the Lower 

 Gardens. Among the other recreation reserves of the metropolis 

 may be named Moore Park, and the Centennial Park — a noble reserve 

 dedicated in 1888, to commemorate the centennial year of the Colony's 

 progress. Not many miles southward from the city is the National 

 Park, where thousands of acres of woodland and river, with miles of 

 ocean frontage, were set aside for a people's playground by Sir John 

 Robertson. For summer resorts the citizens have the highlands about 

 Katoomba and Bowral, where they can escape the moist heat of the 

 city during the most ti-ying days of that season. 



Suburban Sydney is a greater city outside the city proper. While 

 the strictly urban population was set down at the official enumeration 

 four years ago as 107,652, that of the suburbs amounts to 275,631. 

 To south, west, and north the city is continually spreading, and nothing 

 can show the rate at which the process is going on better than a com- 

 parison of the population returns at ten years' interval. Thus, in 1881, 

 while the population of the city proper was 100,152, or, practically, 

 much the same as it is now, the suburban population was only 120,832, 

 and only half that number in 1871. Li the last ten years, Avhile the 

 urban population has been almost stationary, that of the suburbs has 

 considerably more than doubled itself. Instead of about 21,000 houses, 

 these suburbs have now over 52,000, or about three times as many 

 inhabited buildings as the city. This rush of population out of the 

 city has, of course, given rise to a rapid increase in the value of sub- 

 urban building allotments and residential areas. Many neighbourhoods 

 around Sydney, which a fev/ years back were part of the original 

 scrub or bush, are now the centres of flourishing boroughs, with 

 well laid out streets, extensive municipal w^orks, and all the require- 

 ments of permanent settlement. Like all other " booms," the suburban 

 ''land boom" overstepped due limits and had to correct itself in the 

 usual abrupt economic fashion. Inflated values receded to normal 

 figures, building rates came back to reasonable charges, and suburban 

 rents were lowered; but building operations and the process of expan- 

 sion went on more or less all the time. The working men's suburbs 

 are the more populous. Some of them, like Balmain and Ptcdfern, 

 have over 20,000 inhabitants, the most populous of all being the 

 former with 23,475. In the next flight come these with upwards of 



