462 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



doorway carrying a handsomely treated window above it, flanked by Doric columns and 

 terminating in a pediment. The building, which is three storeys high, has been erected 

 in the Italian style; the two wings harmonize with the general design, and the 

 approaches to the main entrances are by a lofty flight of steps, which can be brilliantly 

 illuminated by half a dozen clusters of powerful lamps. 



Turning into the Treasury Gardens, which extend from Spring Street to Lansdowne 

 Street, and have for their southern boundary the road leading out to Richmond, the 

 visitor immediately comes- in sight of the Public Offices, standing on the same level as 

 the Treasury, and rising from a raised terrace extending to the latter building. These 

 Offices cover a block of land three hundred and seventy-five feet long and one hundred 

 and fifty feet deep, and rise to a height of eighty feet in the centre. The principal 

 facade has a southerly aspect and consists of three divisions ; the main body of the 

 structure containing four storeys, and the wings three. The style of architecture adopted 

 is a modification of the Italian ; columns of the Doric order being employed for 

 constructive and decorative purposes in the basement storey, Doric in the next and 

 Corinthian above. From the upper windows a very fine view is obtained over the 

 billowy summits of the trees in the Gardens beneath, and across the valley of the Yarra 

 to Government House Domain, the Botanical Gardens and the south-eastern suburbs. 

 Most of the Departments of the Public Service have their head-quarters in this roomy 

 edifice, and as these were formerly scattered over the whole of the city, and some of 

 them were great distances apart, an important saving of time has resulted from their 

 concentration in one building. 



Returning to Spring Street, and retracing his steps in a northerly direction after 

 passing the lofty facade of the Grand Hotel, recently converted into a coffee palace 

 the stranger will find himself in a few minutes standing before the portico of the 

 Parliament Houses, occupying an elevated and conspicuous position, and facing one of 

 the most important thoroughfares of the city, namely, Bourke Street. 



As early as the year 1853, Mr. Childers, now a distinguished Member of the House 

 of Commons, and then Commissioner of Customs in Victoria, moved a resolution in the 

 Legislative Council affirming the desirability of erecting Houses of Parliament on the 

 present site. This was carried, and plans were prepared by Colonel Pasley, R.E., at an 

 estimated cost of a quarter of a million sterling. But it was not until the year 1856 

 that the necessary funds were provided, and by this time it was apparent that the 

 buildings must be erected on a much larger scale than had been contemplated. Competi- 

 tive designs were therefore invited, and the first portions of the buildings constructed 

 were the two Legislative Chambers, designed to form the kernel of the general edifice. 

 These were completed in November, 1856, and on the 25th of that month the first 

 session of the first Parliament of Victoria, organized in conformity with the Imperial 

 Act conferring a Constitution on the colony, was opened by Major-General Macarthur, 

 the Acting-Governor. Two years later the library and refreshment rooms were built of 

 Bacchus Marsh freestone, which proved to be wholly unfit for the purpose, and 

 Tasmanian freestone had to be substituted for it wherever the former had been most 

 exposed to the action of the weather. It was the wish of the architects that the whole 

 of the external masonry should be executed in Carrara marble, at a cost very little 



