Sydney Past and Present-John Arthur Barry

Chapter one of The City of Sydney, The Story of its Growth from its Foundation to the Present by John Arthur Barry.

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For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Publisher's Note Sydney Past and Present was first published serially in the Town and Country Journal, and the great interest taken by the public in the subject was shown not only by the large demand for copies of the paper, but also by the frequent inquiries received by the editor as to whether the illustrations and letterpress would be published in book form.

The New South Wales Bookstall Company, aware of this demand, purchased the book rights of the letterpress and pictures, and the public have now an opportunity of acquiring in a connected form this record of the oldest Australasian city.

During the first publication of the articles, several letters were received correcting obvious errors of the press and less obvious ones of the author, who has in some cases made alterations in the text suggested by these letters.

Some of the illustrations, for which no good proof of authenticity could be obtained, have been omitted, and some good views of the rocks, first published in the Sydney Mail, added by permission of the proprietors of that newspaper.

In the case of some of the illustrations, it is difficult to ascertain the authorship, but to the skillful pencil of the late Mr. John Ray, Sydney owes a great number of the best old-time pictures of the city between the later thirties and the early fifties, and many of the blocks in this book have been reproduced from copies of these drawings.

Most of the modern Sydney pictures came from the studios of Messrs. Kerry and Company, photographers, George Street, Sydney.

Of course, the ideal book on the subject should contain complete sets of pictures of the city at different periods, accompanied by letterpress supplying an accurate description to correspond with them, but the lack of historical material in a new country such as ours renders this impossible.

This book, however, represents what, after a good deal of search and study among old records, could be found possible to use in a reasonable and convenient form.