JOHANNESBURG CAPTURED.

Evening Post, Volume LIX, Issue 127, 30 May 1900, Page 5

JOHANNESBURG CAPTURED.

(Received May 30, 0.54 p.m.) LONDON, 29th May. It is officially announced that Johannesburg has been captured by the British troops. [Johannesburg, the business centre of the Witwatersrand goldfields, has been a city of wonderfully rapid growth, having sprung up within the last fourteen years. On 18th July, 1886, the Transvaal Government proclaimed \ certain, faims on and around the famous Witwatersrand reef as public goldfields, and since then the town has made marvellously rapid growth, entirely from the efforts of its own inhabitants — the Government having done nothing in the matter, but rather discouraged than assisted the Outlanders' stronghold. As late as 1890 the streets were not "lighted, and only the concession for paving the principal street had been granted. Now it is the largest city in South Africa, and is laid out in broad streets, with side-walks, interspersed with large open squares, in addition to the extensive Market Square, and is lighted by electricity and gas. Eine banks, churches, hotels, club-houses, with siops and private houses, and a magnificent Stock Exchange, have been erected. The city is 5700 feet above the sea level, and the climate would be very healthy were not the sanitary conditions so unsatisfactory, $nd were it not for the frequent and terrible dust-storms, in consequence of which fevers and pneumonia are often prevalent. The population, according to the last census (July, 1896), was 107,078— namely, 79,315 males and 22,763 females. Of these 50,900 were whites, and 42,533 Kaffirs, besides Chinese, coolies, and mixed races. The exodus of Britishers on the eve of the war has, however, greatly reduced the number of residents.]