

THE CITY OF MELBOURNE. 465 



the east end of the Hall, access is gained through a small lobby to the central library, 

 which opens into the two side libraries, the whole occupying the entire length of the 

 east front of the pile as far as it has been completed ; but the plan includes two 

 additional libraries of large dimensions. The central compartment is forty-one feet square, 

 and is carried upon columns to a height of forty-six feet, terminating in an ornamental 

 coffered dome, pierced with openings to light the space below. The Doric order has 

 been employed for the lower and the Ionic for the upper portion of the interior, and a 

 broad gallery with a handsome balustrade runs round the central library. This, with its 

 annexes, contains about forty thousand volumes in all departments of literature, ancient 

 and modern, British and foreign, irrespective of a mass of Parliamentary documents, 

 newspapers and periodical publications stored in rooms below. 



Over the side libraries are the refreshment and billiard rooms, each of them forty- 

 nine feet long by twenty-three feet, and twenty-four feet high. At present temporary 

 accommodation is provided in wooden buildings for Committees and for some of the 

 officials ; but ample provision will be made for these hereafter in the north and south 

 frontages of the completed edifice, which will cost little less than a million sterling 

 before it finally leaves the hands of the builders and decorators. Whenever this takes 

 place, the people of Victoria will have the satisfaction of knowing that the money has 

 been expended on an architectural monument planned in accordance with the teachings 

 of the great masters of the Italian school. Its simple proportions are not marred by 

 that "freedom of treatment" which is so often synonymous with eccentricity; decoration 

 is subordinated to construction, and there is no necessity to make incongruous ornament 

 serve as a mask for poverty of design. The external architecture consists throughout of 

 a single Roman-Doric order standing on a bluestone rusticated basement, and is sur 

 mounted by a well-proportioned attic suitably relieved by carvings. This order embraces 

 both the floors, principal and first, of which the building consists. Each intercolumniation 

 includes a doorway, or window, opening on each floor, those on the principal floor 

 having semicircular arched heads, from the key-stones of which spring elegant balconettes 

 to the windows above. The five doorways opening on to the portico are embellished with 

 polished gray granite columns from the Harcourt quarries, while the windows of the first 

 floor are finished with entablatures, supported on trusses resting on panelled pilasters. 



Of the sixty-four Members who composed the Legislative Council of 1855, in 1886 only 

 sixteen survived, and five of these were no longer resident in the colony, while two 

 only occupied seats in the Legislature. There have been fourteen Parliaments and 

 twenty-four Ministries since the institution of responsible government, giving an average 

 duration of eight hundred and thirty-four days for each of the former, and of five hun- 

 dred and two days for each of the latter. The Legislative Council consists of forty-two 

 Members, elected by the great bulk of the rate-payers of the colony, only those being 

 excluded from the franchise who are rated at less than ten pounds sterling per annum. 

 One-third of the Members retire every other year, so that each holds his seat for six 

 years. Candidates are required to possess a property qualification of the value of one 

 thousand pounds, and the Members of this branch of the Legislature are unpaid, while 

 those of the Legislative Assembly receive three hundred pounds per annum each. 

 Chamber contains eighty-six Members elected by manhood suffrage under protection of 



