Page:Vizagapatam.djvu/354

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VIZAGAPATAM.

a vestige of the fortifications survives, but the garrison hospital is the building now occupied by Messrs. Simpson & Co. the 'open space' is doubtless that in which stands the bronze statue of the late Queen-Empress, given to the town by M.R.Ry.A. V. Jagga Rao in 1904 ; the invalid barrack (after being in turn a medical store, the Collector's treasury and the quarters of two medical warrant officers) has now become the Volunteer armoury and reading-room; and the arsenal is the Collector's office.

The history of the District Court building is alluded to on p. 207. The Collector's office was at one time in the building (now the property of M.R.Ry. Dharma Rao Náyudu which was afterwards occupied by the Waltair Orphan Asylum; was removed to the house now used as Messrs. Arbuthnot's office; and at the end of 1873 was transferred to its present quarters. These are most inconvenient, and a new building is to be put up on the sand-hill on one of the fine sites already mentioned overlooking the sea.

The Waltair Orphan Asylum (alias the Vizagapatam Male and Female Orphan Asylum) was founded in 1817 by the Rev.C. Church, Chaplain. It was remodelled in 1831 and was subsequently described as being intended ' to afford a shelter and home to destitute children, orphans and foundlings of the Northern Circars, and to provide for the maintenance of the offspring and descendants of the men of the Carnatic Veteran Battalion who were disbanded in 1842 and who left their children and grandchildren in a state of destitution.' In the sixties of the last century it contained some 50 inmates and in 1863 the new orphanage above mentioned was built for it. It afterwards declined in prosperity and eventually, in 1894, was abolished, the few orphans remaining in it being sent to other asylums and the bunding being sold.

Facing the Collector's office is the light-house, the light on which (formerly at santapilly) was removed hither in 1902 and is a white dioptric light of the fourth order, flashing every twenty seconds and visible twelve miles at sea in clear weather. Near it is the Roman Catholic church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, built in 1887. The cathedral of St. Anne's, a brick building in Gothic style erected in 1854, stands (see the map) on higher ground to the north.

Adjoining the Collector's office is St. John's, the Church of England place of worship. It was built in 1844 by Sir Arthur Cotton and consecrated in 1846. St, Paul's church in Waltair, it

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