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 per annum for the first twenty-five years, and an enhancement upon that of fifty per cent, for the second twenty-five years. A handsome custom-house is now in course of erection. Public baths, well-ordered and cleanly kept, are extensively patronized close by. An enormous building is rapidly going up close to the chief wharf for a further extension of the meat-freezing industry. The sea-line is faced with spacious warehouses and handsome commercial buildings, and, chiefest convenience of all, the railway station is being built within the harbour precincts, and the locomotive and the steamer are within neighbourly hail of each other. Thus there is no waste of time, of power, or of money, in shipping and discharging operations.

The shipping facilities in Sydney are a disgrace to the age, and a reproach to the character of the New South Wales people. The sanitary state of the city is even worse than the state of her wharfs and shipping arrangements. A Harbour Improvement Association has lately been started by private citizens. All honour and good speed to it.

By contrast with the miserable makeshifts and primitive arrangements of Sydney, Auckland rises to the rank of a modern city, while Sydney, by the comparison, sinks to the level of a mediæval fishing village, only she does not even have a decent supply of fish, which Auckland has.

No good is got by burking unpleasant truths. He is a false prophet who only "prophesies smooth things." He is no true journalist or publicist