Mutual Provident Society are pre-eminent. They cost no less than £50,000.
The banks are not equal to either the Melbourne or the Adelaide banks.
But the insurance offices, warehouses, etc., though not nearly as
numerous, are quite up to the Melbourne standard in size, although for
the reasons already given they do not show to so great an advantage as
their merit deserves. Of the appearance of the shops I have already
written in my letter about Melbourne. They are not so fine as in
Melbourne nor so well stocked, and are pretty much on a level with those
in an English town of the same size.

The names of the principal streets proclaim the age of the town. George
Street and Pitt Street are the two main thoroughfares, and there are
Castlereagh, Liverpool, and William Streets, while King, Hunter, Bligh,
Macquarie, and Philip Streets, and Darlinghurst preserve the names of the
first governors. The suburbs first formed preserve the sweet-sounding
native names--Wooloomooloo, Woolahra, Coogee, Bondi. Of a later date are
Randwick, Newtown, Stanmore, Ashfield, Burwood, and Petersham--the last
four along the railway line.

The good people of Sydney do not spend their money so much upon outward
show as the Victorians. Hence the number of large houses in the suburbs
is very much smaller. But whereas the country around Melbourne for miles
is mostly flat as a pancake, the suburbs of Sydney literally revel in
beautiful building sites. For choice, there are the water frontages below
the town or up the Parramatta river, which is lined with pretty houses,
whose inhabitants come up to Sydney every morning in small river
steamers. The principal suburbs, however, are much closer to the city
than in Melbourne, being connected by steam tramways instead of railways.
New suburbs are also springing up along the railway lines, but until the
railway station is brought into the centre of the town, they can never be