Of all the vast and dramatic changes that have taken place in Calcutta since I first saw it, I think the most striking and outstanding are to be seen in Clive Street and its environs. Looking back and contrasting the past with the present, it all seems so startling and wonderful as to suggest the idea that some genii or magician had descended upon the city and with a touch of his magic wand converted a very ordinary looking street, containing many mean, dilapidated looking dwellings, into a veritable avenue of palaces, and for ever sweeping away blots and eyesores which had existed almost from time immemorial. This transformation more or less applies to Clive Row, the whole of the south side of Clive Ghaut Street stretching round the corner into the south of the Strand, part of the northern portion, Royal Exchange Place, Fairlie Place, the west and south side of Dalhousie Square, and a goodly portion to the east. WRITERS' BUILDINGS Occupying as it does the whole of the north side of Dalhousie Square has been changed and altered out of all knowledge and recognition. It was formerly, before Government took it over, a plain white stuccoed building utterly devoid of any pretensions to architectural beauty, and depending mainly for any chance claim to recognition on its immense length. Its blank, straight up and down appearance was barely relieved by several white pillars standing out rather prominently in the centre of the building. It used to be occupied by shops and all sorts of people, merchants, private residents, etc, etc. Some of the rooms on the ground floor were let out as godowns. I lived there myself for some months on my first arrival in Calcutta, and very pleasant and airy quarters I found them. I recollect in the early morning quite a number of small green paroquets used to fly all about the place, and their incessant chatter and calls to each other made it very bright and cheery. My rooms were on the top floor at the extreme west end, next to where the Council chamber is now situated. I also had in addition a very good dining room on the first floor. When the Bengal Government acquired the property they erected an entirely new facade of a totally different design from the original, built the present long range of verandahs and Council chamber which they completed in 1881-1882, and also threw out from the main block from time to time the various annexes that we see abutting on to Lyons Range. [Illustration: _Photo. by Johnston & Hoffmann_ Frontage of Writers' Buildings from East to West.] [Illustration: _Photo. by J & H._ Distant view of Writers' Buildings, taken before the Dalhousie Institute was built.] Of course most of us know that Writers' Buildings in the days of Clive and Warren Hastings was the home and resting place of the young civilians on their first arrival in Calcutta, and who were then designated Writers, from which fact there appears little doubt the place derives its name.