THE NEW COLONY 309 



make way for the present structure, which cost just ten times as 

 much, 140,000. As an instance of the rapid growth of local 

 municipal government, it may be mentioned here in anticipation 

 that while the old bridge was entirely paid for by the Government, 

 the cost of the new one was borne as to one-third by the Govern- 

 ment, one-third by the City of Melbourne and one-third by the 

 municipalities south of the river. 



The same fate of supersession befel the General Post Office, 

 the Government Offices, the Custom House, and other buildings of 

 which Melbourne was proud in 1850. The old Post Office, which 

 in the early fifties stood on the site of the present palatial structure, 

 was a densely thronged centre of attraction during the gold rush. 

 On the arrival of the monthly mail from England, the long low 

 wooden verandah was crowded from morning to night by an an- 

 xiously expectant mob, and it frequently took several hours before 

 the coveted news from home could be obtained. The Government 

 Offices, when first erected on a portion of the site now graced by 

 the extensive Law Courts, were considered very imposing, as indeed 

 they were in relation to their surroundings, and the effect was 

 heightened by a military guard and all the paraphernalia of official- 

 dom. 



In 1836 the newspapers of Sydney and Hobart Town indulged 

 in a good deal of generally unfriendly criticism of the then unnamed 

 settlement on the Yarra, and by a singular coincidence one of them 

 in each place ventured the prediction that if the chief town was 

 located so far from the sea, the facilities of commerce would eventu- 

 ally necessitate the establishment of at least two others, one at the 

 head of Corio Bay and another at the foot of Arthur's Seat. At 

 the date of this recommendation there was, of course, not even a 

 sod hut at either place, but they were both destined to justify 

 the prediction. The commendation of the neighbourhood of 

 Arthur's Seat for a town by the Sydney Herald in December, 1836, 

 is based upon its assumed shipping facilities, its good surrounding 

 land, and the probability of fresh water anywhere, by sinking 

 wells. It seems to have been overlooked that the site was only a 

 few miles from the district which Collins had abandoned as water- 

 less in 1804, and that it had been examined by the officers of his 



