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A USTRALASIA ILL USTRA TED. 



i'HE OLD WIND-MILL. 





and the Victoria Arcade, which extends along the entire front between Fort and Shortland 

 Streets, and comprises four storeys furnished with a patent lift. It is built of red brick, 

 picked out artistically with white stone, and the style of architecture is a modernized 

 Gothic. At the opposite corner of Shortland Street stands the head office of the South 



British Insurance Company, crowned by the erect 

 figure of " Britannia." On the other side of Queen 

 Street, from the South British, is reared the 

 head office of the Bank of New Zealand, solid, 

 square and massive, as becomes a substantial 

 monetary institution. A little beyond, on the 

 opposite side of the street, stands the new office 

 of the Mutual Life Assurance Society of Victoria, 

 surmounted by its emblematic group of statuary. 

 Three of the four corners which Victoria Street 

 makes in intersecting Queen Street are occupied 

 respectively by the Union Bank of Australia, 

 whose office is built in the Grecian style with a 

 row of columns in fnont ; the City Hall, a three- 

 storey building with shops abutting on the street 

 frontage ; and the extensive offices of the Aus- 

 tralian Mutual Provident Society. Between this and the intersection of 

 Queen Street and Wellesley Street one passes the Working Men's Club, 

 the Auckland Savings' Bank, solidly built and with pilasters of polished granite ; and Mc- 

 Arthur and Co.'s extensive warehouse; while in Wellesley Street West stands the Opera 

 House, with sitting accommodation for some two thousand two hundred and fifty persons. It 

 extends to the corner of the next street, up the slope from Queen Street. Still higher up 

 this slope the spacious four-store)' brick and stucco edifice of the Young Men's Christian 

 Association occupies a commanding corner site. It comprises a library, reading-rooms, lecture 

 and social halls, a gymnasium, and quarters for the Young Women's Christian Association. 



About fifty yards up Wellesley Street East, and with the Albert Park immediately 

 at its back, stands the Free Library and Public Art Gallery, and Auckland enjoys the 

 proud distinction of being the only large city of the colony which possesses such institu- 

 tions. They form a handsome pile of buildings, crowned by a cupola carrying a 

 flag-staff. The space is so ample that, pending the erection of the proposed Town 

 Hall, the Corporation finds room here for its various departments and for the fortnightly 

 meetings of the City Council, to which each of the six wards of the city return three 

 members. Throughout the week Sunday included the Free Library is kept open for 

 the benefit of all who may desire to consult its stores. Of especial value and abounding 

 interest to the reading public is the very fine library, comprising many rare and 

 curious books, which Sir George Grey has presented to the city. To him also it owes 

 many objects of extrinsic interest, collected by him in his long career as a traveller 

 and as a colonial official. To the Art Gallery opened by Governor Jervois in 1888 

 he presented his own valuable collection of pictures, comprising some good works by the 

 old masters. The Gallery is open to the public every week-day. 



