47 o AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



the benefit of some charitable institution. In short, "Eight Hours' Day" is the great 

 holiday of the year for all who are enlisted in the numerous regiments that make up the 

 grand army of labour in the metropolis of Victoria and its belt of populous suburbs. 



Spring Street, which forms the eastern boundary of Melbourne proper, is built upon 

 on one side only. The opposite side is flanked by public gardens and reserves, except 

 where it is skirted by the fa9ades of the Treasury and the Parliament Houses. Its 

 southern extremity is graced by a row of mansions, while poor cottages and shabby 

 little shops huddle together at the other. Some large hotels one of which is the 

 favourite resort of numerous members of the Legislature, and of deputations from the 

 country having business to transact with the Public Departments occupy an intermediate 

 position, as does also the handsomest theatre in Melbourne, built upon the site of a 

 once popular amphitheatre. Close by, at the north-east corner of Bourke Street, stood 

 a by no means spacious marquee designated the Salic de Valentino. It flourished in 

 1851, and for a few years subsequently, when concerts and balls took place nightly 

 underneath its canvas roof ; it was thronged with diggers carrying a little fortune in 

 their belts, and with female dancers sedulously intent upon securing some portion of 

 that easily-acquired wealth. To the apex of a triangular reserve, conspicuously situated 

 in this street, has been transferred the bronze statue of Burke and Wills, which was 

 originally placed at the intersection of Collins Street East and Russell Street. Another 

 reserve is covered by a block of buildings to which a passing reference has already 

 been made the Model Schools. They were erected many years ago when the educa- 

 tional requirements of the infant city were few and easily satisfied ; they are now set 

 apart for the training of teachers in connection with the system of public instruction by 

 the State instituted in 1872. 



THE SUBURBS. 



Spring Street terminates at Victoria Street, and turning into this, the visitor sees 

 before him the square plain edifice belonging to the Royal Society, in which the various 

 scientific associations of the city hold their meetings. The society itself is the result of 

 an amalgamation of the Victorian Institute and the Philosophical Society, both of them 

 formed in the early days of Melbourne, and blended into one under the presidency of 

 Sir Henry Barkly in 1860. As far back as 1854, and at a time when men's minds 

 were engrossed by material pursuits, the late Sir Redmond Barry and Mr. Sidney 

 Gibbons succeeded in bringing together several zealous friends of scientific research, and 

 these are entitled to the credit of having been the founders of the present Royal 

 Society, which is in correspondence with all the principal associations of a kindred 

 character in other parts of the world, and with whom it exchanges " Transactions." 



The Trades' Hall, at the corner of Victoria and Lygon Streets, is the place of 

 assembly of what has not been inaptly called the Parliament of Labour, which formerly 

 held its sittings in a primitive wooden building that has been replaced by a substantial 

 brick structure having a frontage of seventy-two feet to Victoria Street. When completed 

 it will have cost something like -ten thousand pounds sterling, and will nearly cover the 

 acre of ground granted by the Legislature for its perpetual use. The organizations of 

 from seventy to eighty trades, representing almost every variety of handicraft, have their 



