THE FEDERAL COFFEE PALACE. 135 



Daily Telegraph for the following description of the 

 Federal Coffee Palace, a picture of which is given on 

 a preceding page. This magnificent structure was 

 being erected during our stay in Melbourne and Vic- 

 toria, and in my addresses throughout the colony I 

 found it an advantage to point my hearers to it and 

 others like it, as Melbourne's reply to the statement 

 that first-class hotels could not be run without intoxi- 

 cants. Our Victorian friends have set the whole world 

 an example in this respect. 



" There could not be a better proof of the unprece- 

 dented advancement Melbourne has made than in its 

 immense hotels great palatial structures which rival 

 even the famous ' Grands,' ' Langhams,' and ' Bur- 

 lingtons ' of the Old World, and the vast edifices of 

 the United States. Where there is a large manufac- 

 turing and mining population, and an uninterrupted 

 flow of travellers from all countries, there is necessarily 

 much prosperity, and Melbourne peculiarly is an 

 instance of this. Enterprise has secured from 

 sojourners, for the metropolis of Australia, the name 

 of the most comfortable city in the southern continent, 

 and, indeed, in none of the other capitals can the 

 casual visitor find his wants nearly so well supplied. 

 A suggestion of philanthropists resulted in the estab- 

 lishment of coffee palaces, intended originally as a 



