The Architecture of Georgetown. 103 
reign.* The architect has availed himself of many- 
modern improvements and legitimate developments of the 
style ; and though he has not indulged in elaborate 
barge-boards, one of the most characteristic features of 
the wooden building, in spite of the many gables and 
gablets crying out for their introduction, he has made up 
this loss by using other details, not to mention a pro- 
fusion of well designed iron crestings which certainly 
help much in carrying off the heaviness of the over-heavy 
roof and in giving a lighter and more airy appearance 
to the building. Jalousies and other necessary contri- 
vances suitable for the tropics have been made to chime 
in admirably with the style. Without then venturing 
further description or criticizing the very rusty colour 
of the great expanse of roof, we may just say in con- 
clusion, as we look upon the building, that, in its striking 
out in our town a new and truthful line, it teaches us a 
new and useful lesson, and we may add suggests the right 
and honest application of timber, or it tells us how to use 
wood as a constructive material, and at the same time how 
to impart decoration or ornament to it, without any false- 
ness of purpose or any violence to its constructive nature. 
In other words it gives us a good example of the art prin- 
ciple alluded to before, and ever to be insisted on, of " de- 
corating construction without construcling decoration," 
In this sense, or seen from a more aesthetic point of view* 
the new Law Court buildings are the most truthful 
construction in the town, and may well provoke 
imitation in a colony where wood is the only local 
* This timber style of building seems to have originated on the Con- 
tinent where the specimens of wooden buildings in Rouen, Bruges, 
Antwerp, Nuremburg and other foreign places far excel any of our 
buildings of similar construction in Chester, Shropshire or Stafford. 
