With the exceptions named, the principal buildings of Manchester are modern. The Victoria Buildings and Hotel, a palatial pile, now cover what was one of the oldest parts of the city. The Town Hall, completed in 1883, is a fine Gothic structure, occupying a triangular site. It is really a municipal palace--imposing externally, and admirably adapted internally for the conduct of the public affairs of a great city. The rise and progress of the city has been pictorially treated in the great chamber of the Town Hall by Ford Madox Brown. A wide open space known as Albert Square fronts the Town Hall, with an Albert Memorial in the centre, flanked by statues of John Bright and Bishop Fraser. Near by, in St. Anne's Square, is a bronze statue of Richard Cobden. The Assize Courts in Strangeways are as noble architecturally as the Town Hall, and are from designs by the same architect, Mr. Alfred Waterhouse; while the Royal Exchange, in Market Street, is a notable building in the Italian style, possessing the largest meeting room of its kind in the United Kingdom, but a room not too large for the demands made upon its space, as visitors who attempt to inspect it on Tuesdays and Fridays, the chief business days, will readily testify. Then there is the Royal Institution, from designs by Sir Charles Barry, in the Doric style, containing a gallery of paintings and a School of Design, with a statue of Dr. Dalton, the propounder of the Atomic Theory, and a Manchester worthy. The Infirmary, built in the same style as the Exchange, dates from the year 1755. The esplanade in front of it, where are statues of the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and Dr. Dalton, covers the site of what was the "ducking pond" in Manchester in the days when the town troubled itself less about the spread of enlightenment than it does now. Like the Exchange, the Infirmary exists for the benefit of other places than its own immediate neighbourhood. Some 30,000 patients are treated annually within its walls. Its wards bear the names of various benefactors of the institution, and one of the wings was built through the beneficence of Jenny Lind, who gave two concerts for the purpose. The reference to Jenny Lind suggests the fact that Manchester during the present century has been distinguished as a musical centre. Nor has she been backward as a patron of artists; her Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857 brought together the finest collection of ancient and modern paintings the provinces have known. The needs of the inhabitants, in the physical sense, have also during recent years been well attended to, as is shown by the open spaces made even in busy neighbourhoods, and the parks and recreation grounds in the outskirts of both Manchester and Salford. When the citizens feel disposed to travel far afield, they cannot in these days complain of lack of facilities. Having brought the sea to their own doors, they can go direct by boat to almost every part.