110 THE DIAMOND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA
considerable
size containing several thousand inhabitants. The town limits extend to
the farm Dorstfontein, but the business and residence quarters are all
within the farm Bultfontein. The main street in Beaconsfleld leads
direct to Kimberley. Many of the houses are of brick and iron, but the
larger number are of unburned adobe brick, made of clay dug directly
from the soil on which the house stands. With few exceptions all are
unpretentious, one-story buildings.
The
town originally belonged to the London and South Africa Exploration
Company, the organization which laid out the town, but together with
all that company's property passed into the hands of the De Beers
Company in 1898. According to the common practice houses are put up by
the tenants on lots leased from the Company. Beaconsfleld is laid out
in wards, and has a distinctive Municipal Government of its own,
consistÂing of a Mayor and Town Council and the usual town officers.
The Mayor is a member of the Council and elected annually. Although
Beaconsfleld has thus a distinctive individuality, the business firms
are very largely branches of corresponding firms in Kimberley. The town
transacts considerable business, chiefly in stocks which are carried
for the use of the mines ; but there is also a large number of shops
which carry supplies of all kinds for the consumption of the white
residents as well as for the native population which lives in locations
near the town.
Wesselton
Close
adjoining to Beaconsfleld lies the little village of WesÂselton. This
was laid out by the owner of the Wessels estate on Benaauwdheidsfontein
farm. Its buildings resemble those of Beaconsfleld, but are commonly of
a poorer order of adobe brick structures, built like the Beaconsfleld
houses on leased lots. Wesselton has now only a few hundred
inhabitants, mostly natives and East Indians. The natives are chiefly
workers for debris washers about Dutoitspan and Bultfontein mines,
while the East Indians are commonly kitchen gardeners and small shop-
