Reduced to matter-of-fact figures, Johannesburg proper covers four
square miles; its roads and streets are 126 miles in length, twenty-one
miles of which are macadamised, and ten miles have tram lines. The
city's parks and open spaces occupy eighty-four acres. There have been
twenty miles of gas-piping laid, while the electric light is supplied by
forty-two miles of wire. The waterworks supply 600,000 gallons of water
daily for domestic use, exclusive of what is required for the mines and
street watering. The population of the town at the census of July,
1896, consisted of 79,315 males and 22,763 females, of whom 32,357 males
and 18,520 females were European, making a total European population of
50,877. It is believed that during the seventeen months which have
elapsed this population has been augmented to about 55,000.