curator, the salary offered being £300 a year, with a travelling allowance
of £50. The fact will bring home to many that the Museum on the site and
in a portion of the old gaol building, is becoming an institution worthy
of its name, and a visit to it at the present time will serve to convince
most people that such is the case. The outward aspect of the prison is
gradually disappearing, and a roomy apartment has been added, in which the
exhibits can be seen to much greater advantage than before. Of course,
much remains to be done to the structure to fit it for its purpose, and to
deprive it of the forbidding and disagreeably reminiscent aspect which it
still presents. But that this can be accomplished without much trouble or
even great expense is clear. Given a well designed front, and the
demolition of the upper cells, as well as certain alterations within, and
all traces of the prison will have disappeared. It will be admitted by
these who remember the old Perth Museum attached to the Mechanics’
Institute, and the modest beginnings of the present institution itself,
that the Curator, Mr. B. H. Woodward, has done wonders with the mean and
exhibits at his disposal. For one thing, he has succeeded in making a very
salient collection of our minerals and ores of all kinds, and the
exhibition of stuffed birds, prepared by a skilled taxidermist, not long
since arrived in the colony, is quite excellent. He has also made the most
of old exhibits, and in fact has done as much as any one in his position
could have done. Mr. Woodward has a special faculty and qualification for
the position of Curator of a Museum, and therefore the action of the
committee in not giving him the first refusal of the post, with the
increased emoluments and advantages will occur to those acquainted with
the circumstances and facts as distinctly unfair. To Mr. Woodward is
entirely due the credit of the excellent commencement which has been made,
and which he has effected without the assistance or guidance of a
committee. No doubt the gentlemen who now act on the committee of the
Library and Museum are learned, capable and business-like, and are
animated by a laudable desire to make the Museum the best institution
possible in the circumstances ; but we repeat to virtually hoist the
present Curator out of his place and hoist another into it, without,
apparently, any reason whatever is unfair, to say the least. But for Mr.
Woodward’s efforts possibly there would have been no Library Committee in
existence at the present moment, and like an incident in Milton’s
“Paradise Lost,” he has given birth to a creature which has turned round
and rent him. Apart from this incident, the interest which is being taken
in the Museum, and the increased financial support which it will now
almost certainly derive from the public funds is a matter for
satisfaction. It has long been felt that one of the wants of Perth is a
good Museum—one which in the first place contains as full a collection as
possible of the flora and fauna and geological and mineral specimens of
the colony, and in the next exhibits of all kinds of archaeological,
ethnological, artistic and technical interest and value. The flourishing
condition of the public finances justifies liberal support being given to
the institution by Parliament, and it may be trusted that the Committee
will well and wisely expend the money about to be placed at their
disposal, and will act judiciously as well as fairly in the future
selection of its officers.