24 g AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



tional, are good and commodious. But the one educational establishment whose history is 

 ; , arable from that of Parramatta, and whose influence extends far and wide throughout 

 the colony, is the- old King's School, under the direct control of the Episcopal Church. 

 Founded in the year 1832, when Sir Richard Bourke was the head of the State and 

 Bishop Hroughton of the Church, it immediately became the great Church of England 

 school of the colony. It is by no means a beautiful building, having suffered many 

 additions wherein utility was the primary object. The excellence of its management is, 

 however, evidenced by the positions of many old pupils, now in the foremost ranks of 

 social, professional and political life. 



Manufactures in the town have been in a small way successful. There are tile 

 and pipe works, three establishments where wool is woven into tweed and a soap and 

 candle factor). In early days linen was made from flax grown on the Government farm, 

 but that useful industry died out. Conspicuous in the old town are the penal and 

 eleemosynary establishments general and criminal lunatic asylums accommodating together 

 eight hundred and fifty patients, a reformatory for girls, a benevolent asylum, a commo- 

 dious gaol, a district hospital and a hospital for erysipelas. Quite early in the history of 

 the colony, Parramatta, having a natural water-supply, was selected for the pauper and 

 criminal institutions, and most of them have been retained to this day. 



To all visitors of cultured, artistic, aesthetic or even historic tastes, the chief glory 

 of Parramatta is the Park the old Domain, admittance to which is by an archway built 

 in the Tudor style. Within the enclosure oaks tower aloft and shake their leaves in 

 the light summer breeze with a cool and pleasant rustle, and willows in the damp (lats 

 bend their boughs, mighty in their gift of perfect shade. Pines from Norfolk Island, 

 only less beautiful and grand than those in the Sydney Gardens ; pines from southern 

 Italy ; pines from the Californian slopes, and pines from Scottish and Norwegian hills, stand 

 tall, strong and shady, contrasting with the trees of native birth still lingering beside 

 the shallow and generally turgid waters of the characteristic Australian creek. The firs 

 grew from cones, the oaks from acorns, the willows from slips, which Mr. George 

 Suttor, Australia's first gardener, brought over in his plant-house on the Porpoise at the 

 beginning of the present century. 



The Park-lands slope gently upward to a round knoll, where stands a plain old 

 house about which cling many historic associations. It is the old Government House, 

 the country residence of the sailor Governors, and of four at least of their successors the 

 .place of their rest, and frequently of their most active labours. It was while walking in 

 these grounds that John Macarthur met Governor Bligh in the earliest days of a 

 troubled Administration. In one of these old parlours they sat down together to break- 

 fast with ex-Governor King, and when the meal was ended they walked across to that 

 other old house below the town by the River-side, and inspected on the Elizabeth Farm 

 the little flock of sheep mustered on that estate. \Ve can imagine the sheep folded in 

 the evening for fear of the wild dogs, and the two distinguished officials looking curiously 

 at the little (lock whose development has been the main cause of the larger prosperity 

 of Australia. It was at this town also that Governor Denison fixed his observatory. 



It has been well said that even had Parramatta been the least convenient of all 

 towns the beauty of its surroundings would have made it a desirable dwelling-place. 



