One of the very earliest street alterations and improvements that comes to my recollection was in Canning Street, just at the junction of Clive Row, on the space of ground extending from the latter for some distance to the east, and north as far as the boundary wall of Andrew Yule & Co.'s offices, leaving but a narrow strip of a lane running parallel to the latter and affording access to China Bazaar on the east and beyond. When I first came to Calcutta this space was occupied by a very mediæval, ancient, and old-fashioned building having a flagged, paved courtyard in front, surrounded by high brick walls. It divided Canning Street into two distinct sections, effectually obstructing through communication between east and west, except for the narrow strip of passage above referred to. The place was then known as it is at the present day as Aloe Godown or Potato Bazaar, and was in the occupation of George Henderson & Co. as an office when they were agents of the Borneo Jute Co., afterwards converted into the Barnagore Jute Co. When it was pulled down, it of course opened out free communication between east and west and allowed of the erection of the buildings we see on the north and south of the eastern portion. Whilst on this subject I must confess to a lapse of memory in respect of what Clive Row was like at that particular period. I am half inclined to the belief that it did not exist as an ordinary thoroughfare and had no houses on it; also that more or less it was filled up by the compounds of the various houses situated on the western side of China Bazaar. At the same time, however, it may have given access of very restricted dimensions to the north and west of Aloe Godown, but the entrance which we always used was the gateway in Canning Street facing due west. The next improvement, that I recollect, this time in connection with the building of new business premises, was when Jardine Skinner & Co. vacated their old offices which were situated on the site of Anderson Wright & Co.'s and Kettlewell Bullen & Co.'s present offices, and removed to their present very handsome quarters which they have for so long occupied. I very well recollect the style of their old place of business and how the exterior strongly reminded me of the cotton warehouses in Liverpool. The interior was a big, rambling, ramshackle kind of a place with but few pretensions to being an office such as we see at the present day. [Illustration: _Photo. by Bourne & Shepherd_ Town Hall, Calcutta.] [Illustration: _Photo. by Bourne & Shepherd_ Site of Black Hole of Calcutta] The whole was of course eventually pulled down, as was also a similar range of buildings in the south of Clive Ghaut Street on which Macneill & Co.'s offices were built.