The whole was an experience which can never be forgotten by any of those who had the good fortune to be there. The popular reception in the town-hall was especially impressive. Here, standing on the dais in the centre of this fine building, the Lord Mayor of Sydney alongside, and a number of ministers, judges and soldiers, grouped about him, the Prince, in plain grey jacket suit and soft brown hat, received the salutes of a great multitude of men, women and children--the blind man led by friends, the old lady who must see the Prince before she died, the baby who would be able to say in years to come that it was present. The people were shepherded past by members of the local police, for whose patience and courtesy it is impossible to express too great admiration, in one long, smiling, curtsying, hat-doffing stream. Numerous barriers had been erected, but there was no crushing whatever. It was a demonstration of orderliness and public spirit of the very best.
Another picturesque function was where, under the twinkling pendants of the big chandeliers in the ballroom of Sydney's Government House, beneath the portrait of his ancestor George III, and before a brilliant assemblage of naval and military officers, judges, ministers, civic authorities, and members of consular bodies, the Prince shook hands with several hundreds of representative men belonging to all sections and communities of the Australian continent. Interesting also was the day he spent amongst the young folk. It began with a visit to the Sydney Cricket-Ground where twelve thousand children of the local Government primary schools, headed by Mr. Mutch, Minister for Education, Mr. Board, Director of Education, and Colonel Strong, Chairman of the Executive Committee, organized and supervised a picturesque exhibition of physical drill. The children deployed upon the grass in the centre, where they went through evolutions and exercises, and arranged themselves so as to form patriotic emblems and messages of welcome. Fifty thousand parents and relations occupied gigantic stands around the ground and added a bass to the treble of the children's cheering.
Later on the Prince proceeded to the University. On the way he passed through some of the less fashionable quarters of Sydney, where he was warmly received by crowds consisting largely of artisans, amongst whom his popularity seemed to grow each day he remained in Australia. At the University, a place with fine buildings, in pleasant country surroundings, on the outskirts of the city, he was cheered by some two thousand undergraduates, five hundred girl students, and a big gathering of graduates and members of their families. The great hall, with stained-glass mullioned windows, dark grained timber roof and grey stone walls, broken by a long array of mellowing oil portraits, where the Chancellor, Sir William Cullen, read an address, recalled the beautiful precincts of Christchurch, Oxford, upon which it appears to be designed. The feeling of home was heightened, alike by stained-glass portraits of Cardinal Wolsey and other famous founders of Oxford and Cambridge colleges, and by the presence in the assemblage of a number of red and black Oxford hoods amongst the grey ones worn by graduates of the Sydney University. The gathering included a fine body of students in uniform, many of them wearing war-decorations won overseas. The blue and gold flag of the University corps occupied a place of honour at one end.