Read Ebook: The Bombay City Police: A Historical Sketch 1672-1916 by Edwardes S M Stephen Meredyth

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Thus, including the Deputy of Police, the land force comprised 10 Europeans, one of whom was in charge of the markets, and 86 Indians, of whom two were inspectors of roads. The clerical staff consisted of three Prabhus. The water-police consisted of 53 Indians and one clerk. The cost of the force, including the water-police, amounted to Rs. 27,204 a year, to which had to be added Rs. 888 for contingencies, Rs. 1425 for the clothing of havaldars and peons, and Rs. 2000 for stationery.

The Regulation of 1812 effected little or no improvement in the state of the public security. Gangs of criminals burned ships in Bombay waters to defraud the insurance-companies; robberies by armed gangs occurred frequently in all parts of the Island; and every householder of consequence was compelled to employ private watchmen, the fore-runners of the modern Ramosi and Bhaya, who were often in collusion with the bad characters of the more disreputable quarters of the Town. Even Colaba, which contained few dwellings, was described in 1827 as the resort of thieves. The executive head of the force at this date was Mr. Richard Goodwin, who succeeded the unfortunate Briscoe in 1811 and served until 1816, when apparently he was appointed Senior Magistrate of Police, with Mr. W. Erskine as his Junior.

The proceedings of both the magistrates and the police were regarded with a jaundiced eye by the Recorder's Court, and Sir Edward West, who filled the appointment, first of Recorder and then of Chief Justice, from 1822 to 1828, animadverted severely in 1825 upon the illegalities perpetrated by the magisterial courts, presided over at that date by Messrs. J. Snow and W. Erskine. His successor in the Supreme Court, Sir J. P. Grant, passed equally severe strictures upon the police administration at the opening of the Quarter Sessions in 1828.

"The calendar is a heavy one. Several of the crimes betoken a contempt of public justice almost incredible and a state of morals inconsistent with any degree of public prosperity. Criminals have not only escaped, but seem never to have been placed in jeopardy. The result is a general alarm among native inhabitants. We are told that you are living under the laws of England. The only answer is that it is impossible. What has been administered till within a few years back has not been the law of England, nor has it been administered in the spirit of the law of England; else it would have been felt in the ready and active support the people would have given to the law and its officers, and in the confidence people would have reposed in its efficacy for their protection."

The punishments inflicted at this date were on the whole almost as barbarous as those in vogue in earlier days. In 1799, for example, we read of a Borah, Ismail Sheikh, being hanged for theft: in 1804 a woman was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for perjury, during which period she was to stand once a year, on the first day of the October Sessions, in the pillory in front of the Court House , with labels on her breast and back describing her crime: and in the same year one Harjivan was sentenced to be executed and hung in chains, presumably on Cross Island , where the bodies of malefactors were usually exposed at this epoch. One James Pennico, who was convicted of theft in 1804, escaped lightly with three months' imprisonment and a public whipping at the cart's tail from Apollo Gate to Bazaar Gate; in 1806 a man who stole a watch was sentenced to two years' labour in the Bombay Docks. The public pillory and flogging were punishments constantly inflicted during the early years of the nineteenth century. The pillory, which was in charge of the Deputy of Police, was located on the Esplanade in the neighbourhood of the site now occupied by the Municipal Offices. The last instance of its use occurred in 1834, when two Hindus were fastened in it by sentence of the Supreme Court and were pelted by boys for about an hour with a mixture composed of red earth, cowdung, decayed fruits and bad eggs. At intervals their faces were washed by two low-caste Hindus, and the pelting of filth was then resumed to the sound of a fanfaronade of horns blown by the Bhandaris attached to the Court. Meanwhile the English doctrine of the equality of all men before the law was gradually being established, though the earliest instance of a Brahman being executed for a crime of violence did not occur until 1846. The case caused considerable excitement among orthodox Hindus, whose views were based wholly upon the laws of Manu.

The early "thirties" were remarkable for much crime and for a serious public disturbance, the Parsi-Hindu riots, which broke out in July, 1832, in consequence of a Government order for the destruction of pariah-dogs, which at this date infested every part of the Island. Two European constables, stimulated by the reward of eight annas for every dog destroyed, were killing one in the proximity of a house, when they were attacked and severely handled by a mob composed of Parsis and Hindus of several sects. On the following day all the shops in the Town were closed, and a mob of about 300 roughs commenced to intimidate all persons who attempted to carry out their daily business. The bazar was deserted; and the mob forcibly destroyed the provisions intended for the Queen's Royals, who were on duty in the Castle, and stopped all supplies of food and water for the residents of Colaba and the shipping in the harbour. As the mob continued to gather strength, Mr. de Vitr?, the Senior Magistrate of Police, called for assistance from the garrison, which quickly quelled the disturbance.

According to Mrs. Postans, the police administration had improved and robberies had become less frequent at the date of her visit, 1838. "The establishment of an efficient police force," she writes, "is one of the great modern improvements of the Presidency. Puggees are still retained for the protection of property: but the highways and bazaars are now orderly and quiet, and robberies much less frequent." The authoress admitted, however, that the Esplanade--particularly the portion of it occupied by the tents of military cadets--was the resort of "a clique of dexterous plunderers," who during the night used to cast long hooks into the tents and so withdraw all the loose articles and personal effects within reach. The prevalence of more serious crime is indicated by her remarks about the Bhandari toddy-drawers:--

"It appears that in many cases of crime brought to the notice of the Bombay magistracy, evidence which has condemned the accused has been elicited from a Bundarrie, often sole witness of the culprit's guilt. Murderers, availing themselves of the last twilight ray to decoy their victims to the closest depths of the palmy woods and there robbing them of the few gold or silver ornaments they might possess, have little thought of the watchful toddy-drawer, in his lofty and shaded eyry."

That the improvement was not very marked is also proved by the fact that in 1839, the year after Mrs. Postans' visit, the Bench of Justices increased their contribution to Government for police charges to Rs. 10,000, the additional cost being declared necessary owing to the rapid expansion of the occupied urban area, and to the grave inadequacy of the force for coping with crime. So far as watch and ward duties were concerned, the police must have welcomed the first lighting of the streets with oil-lamps in 1843. Ten years later there were said to be 50 lamps in existence, which were lighted from dusk to midnight, and the number continued to increase until October, 1865, when the first gas-lamps were lighted in the Esplanade and Bhendy Bazar. On the other hand drunkenness was a fruitful source of crime, and the number of country liquor-shops was practically unlimited. "On a moderate computation" wrote Mrs. Postans "every sixth shop advertises the sale of toddy." With such facilities for intoxication, crime was scarcely likely to decrease.

But other and deeper reasons existed for the unsatisfactory state of the public peace and security. Throughout the whole of the period from 1800 to 1850, and in a milder form till the establishment of the High Court in 1861, there was constant friction, occasionally of an acute character, between the Supreme Court and the Company's government and officials. Moreover, the original intention of the Crown that the Supreme Court should act as a salutary check upon the Company's administration was frustrated by several periods of interregnum between 1828 and 1855, the Court being represented frequently by only one Judge and on one occasion being entirely closed owing to the absence of judges. This antagonism between the highest judicial tribunal and the executive authority could not fail to react unfavourably on the subordinate machinery of the administration, and coupled with inadequacy of numbers, insufficiency of pay, and a general lack of integrity in the Police force itself, may be held to have been largely responsible for the comparative freedom enjoyed by wrong-doers and their manifest contempt for authority.

When Thomas Holloway relinquished the office of High Constable in 1829, his place was taken by one Jos? Antonio, presumably a Portuguese Eurasian, who had been serving as Constable to the Court of Petty Sessions. Jos? Antonio seems to have performed the duties of executive police officer until 1835, when Captain Shortt was appointed "Superintendent of Police and Surveyor etc. etc." Between 1829 and 1855 the following officials were responsible for the police administration of Bombay:--

MR. CHARLES FORJETT

"I may here give a personal instance of the insecurity of the times. As I was returning one night with my father from the Grant Road theatre in a carriage, a ruffian prowling about in the dark at Falkland road snatched my gold-embroidered cap and ran away with it. The road had been newly built and ran through fields and waste land. Khetwadi, as its name implies, was also an agricultural district. Grant road, Falkland road and Khetwadi were then lonely places on the outskirts of the City, and it is no wonder that wayfarers in these localities could never be secure of purse or person. But on the Esplanade, under the very walls of the Fort, occurred instances of violence and highway robbery, which went practically unchecked. Not a few of the offenders were soldiers. They used to lie in wait for a likely carriage with a rope thrown across the road, so that the horse stumbled and fell, and then they rifled the occupants of the carriage at their leisure. It was Mr. Forjett, whose vigilance and activity brought all this crying scandal to an end."

In addition to regular police duties, the Superintendent of Police at this date was also in charge of the Fire Brigade--an arrangement which lasted until 1888, and which accounts for the fact that an annual return of fires signed by Forjett and his successor formed a regular feature of the annual crime return submitted to Government by the Senior Magistrate of Police. The officers and men of the brigade were members of the regular police force, the European officers performing both police and fire-brigade duties and the Indian ranks being restricted to fire-duty only.

At this date the military forces in Bombay comprised three native regiments and one British force of 400 men under the command of Brigadier Shortt. The native troops were implicitly trusted by their officers, and the chief danger apprehended by the Bombay Government was from the Muhammadan population of the city, which numbered about 150,000. Forjett from the first combated this view and wrote a special letter to the Governor's Private Secretary, warning him that the main danger was from the troops. His own inquiries had convinced him that the townspeople would not rise unless the native regiments gave them the lead, and that the latter were planning mutiny. Much to the disgust of General Shortt, he made no secret of his views, declaring that the sepoys were the real potential source of disturbance and danger. Forjett's own force consisted of 60 European police and a number of Indian constables; but on the fidelity of the latter he could not implicitly rely. Consequently, after news reached Bombay of the disasters at Cawnpore and other centres, he obtained Lord Elphinstone's special permission to enrol a body of 50 European mounted police.

Meanwhile the Muharram, which was always an occasion of anxiety and frequently of disturbance, was drawing near. The plans made by the Government for maintaining order involved the division of the European troops and police into small parties, which were posted in various parts of the town. Forjett disapproved wholly of this arrangement, as no considerable body of European troops or police would be at hand to quell a mutiny of the sepoys, which was certain to break out in the neighbourhood of their barracks. He was naturally not empowered to revise the arrangement of the military forces; but he definitely informed Lord Elphinstone that he felt bound to disobey the orders for the distribution of the police. "It is a very risky thing", said the Governor, "to disobey orders; but I am sure you will do nothing rash."

The Muharram would have ended peacefully but for the stupidity of a drunken Christian drummer, belonging to one of the native regiments, who towards the end of the festival insulted a religious procession of Hindus by knocking down the idol which they were escorting. He was at once arrested and locked up. The men of his regiment, incensed at the action of the police, whom they detested on account of Forjett's known distrust of themselves, hurried to the lock-up, released the drummer and carried him off, together with two police-guards, to their lines. An English constable and four Indian police-sepoys, who went to demand the surrender of the drummer and the release of their two comrades, were resisted by force. A struggle ensued, and the police had to fight their way out, leaving two of their number seriously wounded. The excitement was intense, and the sepoys of the native regiments were bent upon breaking out of their lines. On receiving news of the disturbance, Forjett galloped to the scene, leaving orders for his assistant, Mr. Edginton, and the European police to follow him. He found the native troops trying to force their way out of the lines, and their officers with drawn swords endeavouring to hold them back. At the sight of Forjett the anger of the men rose to white heat. "For God's sake Mr. Forjett," cried the officers, "go away". "If your men are bent on mischief" was the reply, "the sooner it is over the better." The sepoys hesitated, while Forjett sat on his horse confronting them. A minute or two later Mr. Edginton and fifty-four European police rode up; and Forjett cried, "Throw open the gates. I am ready for them." The native troops were unprepared for this prompt action, and judging discretion to be the better part of valour, remained in their lines and gradually recovered their senses.

Thus by his energy, courage and detective ability did Forjett save Bombay from a mutiny of the garrison. His services had more than local effect, for in Lord Elphinstone's opinion, if the Mutiny in Bombay had been successful, nothing could have saved Hyderabad, Poona and the rest of the Presidency, and after that "Madras was sure to go too." The formal thanks of the Bombay Government were conveyed to Forjett in a letter from the Secretary, Judicial Department, No. 1681 of May 23rd, 1859, nearly six months after the Queen's Proclamation announcing the end of the East India Company's rule. The words of the letter were as follows:--

"The Right Honourable the Governor in Council avails himself of this opportunity of expressing his sense of the very valuable services rendered by the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr. Forjett, in the detection of the plot in Bombay in the autumn of 1857. His duties demanded great courage, great acuteness, and great judgment, all of which qualities were conspicuously displayed by Mr. Forjett at that trying period."

The scars left by the Mutiny in India were barely healed, when Bombay entered upon that extraordinary era of prosperity, engendered by the outbreak of the American Civil war and the consequent stoppage of the American cotton-supply, which gave her in five years 81 millions sterling more than she had regarded in previous years as a fair price for her cotton, and which eventually led, after a period of great inflation, to the financial disasters of 1865. An enormous influx of population took place; the occupied area rapidly expanded; and the burden thrown upon the police force, which was numerically inadequate, must have been excessive. It redounds to Forjett's credit that in spite of all difficulties, and in conjunction with his duties as a Municipal Commissioner in a time of feverish urban progress, he contrived to keep crime within reasonable bounds, and put an end finally to the hordes of ruffians who infested the skirts of the town and nightly lay in wait for passers-by.

The Indian merchants of Bombay were not slow to recognise his services to the city, and showed their gratitude for the security which he had afforded to them by presenting him in 1859 with an address, and subscribing at the same time "a sum of upwards of ?1300 sterling for the purpose of offering to him a more enduring token of their esteem." That was not all. After his retirement to England early in 1864, the Indian cotton-merchants sent him a purse of ?1500, "in token of their strong gratitude for one whose almost despotic powers and zealous energy had so quelled the explosive forces of native society that they seem to have become permanently subdued:" while the Back Bay Reclamation Company, which was formed at the height of the share mania, allotted him five shares in his absence, and when the price reached a high point, sold them and sent him the proceeds in the form of a draft for ?13,580. These large sums, presented to Forjett after his final departure from India, form a striking testimony to the value of his work as a police-officer and to the great impression left by his personality upon Indians of all classes in Bombay.

Forjett's services at the time of the Mutiny were separately acknowledged. From the public he received various addresses and a purse of ?3,850, subscribed by both English and Indian residents. The Government, whose eulogy of his action has already been quoted, granted him an extra pension and also bestowed a commission in the Army upon his son, F. H. Forjett, who was in command of one of the native regiments in Bombay at the time of the great Hindu-Muhammadan riots of 1893. Yet Forjett is said to have regarded himself as slighted by Government in not having received from them any decoration. It certainly seems curious that so admirable a public servant should not have been rewarded with a Knighthood or admitted to one of the Orders of Chivalry. But in Forjett's day the Government bestowed decorations very sparingly, and it may have been thought that this faithful servant of the vanished East India Company was sufficiently recompensed by the grant of a commission to his son and by permission to accept the handsome pecuniary rewards offered to him by a grateful urban population.

Here it is well to take leave of Charles Forjett, the first efficient chief that the Bombay Police ever had. One hesitates to imagine what might have happened in Bombay, if a man of less courage and ability had been in charge of the force in 1857: and looking back upon all that he achieved during his nine years of office, one realizes why Lord Elphinstone trusted him so implicitly, and why the Indian and European public regarded him with so much respect and admiration. His name still lives in Forjett Street, a thoroughfare of minor importance leading from Cumballa hill into the mill-area of Tardeo. He himself will live for ever in the history of the "First City in India" as the man who raised the whole tone of police administration, brought the criminal classes of Bombay for the first time under stern control, and saved the city from the horrors and excesses which must inevitably have attended a rebellion of the native garrison.

Forjett was succeeded in 1864 by Mr. Frank H. Souter, son of Captain Souter of the 44th Regiment who was a prisoner in Afghanistan in 1842. Mr. Souter had served as a volunteer against the rebels in the Nizam's dominions in 1850, and was appointed Superintendent of Police, Dharwar, in 1854. During the Mutiny he captured the rebel chief of Nargund, for which he received a sword of honour, and two years later was engaged in suppressing the Bhil brigands of the northern Deccan. This task he successfully completed by killing Bhagoji Naik, the notorious Bhil outlaw, and capturing his chief followers, showing on several occasions so much courage and resource that he was recommended for the Victoria Cross. He thus had several years of distinguished service to his credit before he assumed charge of the Bombay Police Force in 1864.

Accordingly in 1864 Colonel Bruce, Inspector-General of Police with the Government of India, was despatched to Bombay to investigate local conditions and make recommendations for the future constitution of the force. His proposals, which were approved and adopted in 1865, were briefly the following. The total force was to number 1456, as he was "unable to perceive that the work could be done with fewer hands", divided under the following main heads:--

Besides these, there were 84 police for the Government Dockyard, who had existed for several years and were paid for by the Marine Department, and a few miscellaneous police, who guarded municipal graveyards and burning-grounds and were paid for by the Municipal Commissioners. Neither these nor the Dock police were available for ordinary police work. Excluding the Harbour police, who numbered 101, the police force proper in 1865 was composed as follows:--

Superintendents 6 Inspectors 22 Sub-Inspectors 12 Jemadars 24 Havildars 62 Men 1216 Mounted Police 13

These numbers were appreciably in excess of the total strength of the force in Mr. Forjett's time and placed the Bombay police on a level with the forces maintained in the sister-towns of Calcutta and Madras.

The office of Commissioner of Police dates also from Colonel Bruce's reorganization of 1865. He proposed that the appointments of Police Commissioner and Municipal Commissioner should be amalgamated: but this suggestion was very wisely negatived by Government. The senior officer of the police force was thenceforth made responsible solely for the police administration of the city, with the title of Police Commissioner, while under the new Municipal Act of 1865 the executive power and responsibility in municipal matters were vested in a Municipal Commissioner appointed for a term of three years. From this date, therefore, the Commissioner of Police, though he still controlled the fire-brigade and sat on the Municipal Corporation as an elected or nominated member, ceased to exercise any official powers in regard to conservancy, rating, lighting and the water-supply.

These annual reports of the Senior Magistrate, and later the Chief Presidency Magistrate, were doleful documents, consisting of a mass of figures relative to various classes of crime, and unrelieved, except on very rare occasions, by illuminating comment or interesting fact. The reviews by Government of these returns were little better. Occasionally an Under-Secretary would try to infuse life into the dry bones of the crime-tables, and suggest new avenues of inquiry: but in the end the figures, like the thorns of Holy Writ, sprang up and choked him, and he had to content himself with echoing the uninspired deductions of the magisterial bench. In 1883 the Bombay Government decreed the abolition of these magisterial reports on the state of crime, and in the following year Sir Frank Souter, as Commissioner of Police, submitted the first annual report on the working of the Police in the Town and Island of Bombay. The change, though overdue, was none the less welcome, for the Commissioner, with his fingers on the pulse of the city, was in a position to supply more valuable information and lend a more human touch to the report than was possible so long as his annual review of police activity was confined to a list of fires and a table showing dismissals and resignations from the force. The Chief Presidency Magistrate, with a tenacity worthy of a better cause, continued to submit a return of crime until 1886, when Government ordered its discontinuance. Since that date the only annual report on police and crime has been furnished by the Commissioner, who is accustomed to forward it for remarks to the Chief Presidency Magistrate before submitting it to Government.

In 1885 the Bombay Police Force was composed as follows:--

The total cost of this force, including rent, contingencies, allowances and hospital expenses, was Rs. 475,297. The cost of the Land Police was borne by Government, the Municipal Corporation giving a fixed contribution towards it. The Corporation paid also for the constables posted at the burning and burial grounds. Government bore the whole cost of the Harbour Police, while the charges of the Prince's Dock Police were debited to the Port Trustees.

While the force numbered 101 less than in 1865, the population of Bombay had increased from 645,000 in 1872 to 773,000 in 1881; while between 1872 and 1883 nearly 4000 new dwelling-houses had been erected and 6 1/2 miles of new streets and roads had been thrown open to traffic. Again, whereas in Calcutta the percentage of police to population was 1 to 227, in Bombay the percentage was 1 to 506. In consequence the strain upon the men was excessive. Most of them worked both by day and night and obtained no proper rest: and this fact, coupled with the exiguous pay of Rs. 10 per month allotted to the lowest grade constable, injured recruitment and obliged the Commissioner to accept candidates of less than the standard height and chest-measurement. Sir Frank Souter also remarked that only 110 officers and 297 men, out of the whole force, were able to read and write, that no provision for their education existed, and that even if it were provided, the men were so overworked that they would be unable to take advantage of it. He urged the Government to sanction an immediate increase of 200 men in the lower ranks and to abolish the lowest grade of constable on Rs. 10 per month, on the ground that this was not a living wage and compared unfavourably with the salaries obtainable in private employ. The Bombay Government, while admitting the force of the Commissioner's arguments, declared that financial stringency prevented their granting the whole increase required and therefore sanctioned the cost of an additional 101 men, thus merely bringing the force up to the number declared to be necessary twenty years before.

Year Number of all grades Annual Cost

The small increase of 100 men between 1885 and 1888 was absurdly disproportionate to the extra burden of work entailed by the growth of the mill-industry, by the growing demands of the public, and by the activity of the legislature. Among the additional duties devolving on the Bombay police, which came prominently to notice after 1865, were the supervision of the weights and measures used by retail merchants and the prosecution of those whose weights did not conform to the official standard. In 1873, 112 shopkeepers were prosecuted for this offence and all except six were convicted. A year later Government commented unfavourably on the small number of prosecutions under the Arms Act and instructed the Commissioner to exercise a much stricter supervision over the importation and unlicensed sale of arms and ammunition. The Contagious Diseases Act, which no longer exists, was also the source of much extra work and fruitless trouble. In 1884 the Commissioner reported that there were 1435 women on the register, and ten years later 1500. "I regret to say," he wrote in the course of a report submitted in the former year, "that in the existing state of the law the efforts of the Police to control contagious diseases are almost futile. Hundreds of women, who are well known to be carrying on prostitution in the most open manner, cannot be registered because Magistrates require evidence which it is next to impossible to obtain." He added that the working of the Act involved a great deal of unnecessary expense, that the police were unable to discharge their duties satisfactorily, and that unless the hands of both the magistrates and the police were strengthened, it would be wiser to abolish the Act altogether. This view eventually found favour and, combined with strong pressure from other quarters, led to the abolition of the Act in July, 1888. A special staff of two officers and ten constables were released from an unpleasant task and were absorbed into the regular police force.

From time to time public interest was aroused during these years by sensational crimes. The earliest occurred in 1866, when four Europeans murdered four Marwadis as they lay asleep in a house in Khoja Street. The motive of the crime was robbery; and the culprits were fortunately caught by the Deputy Commissioner, Mr. Edginton, and some European and Indian police, who pursued them from the scene of the crime. At the end of 1872 the Senior Magistrate of Police received information that a Parsi solicitor of the High Court and a Hindu accomplice had instigated a Fakir named Khaki Sha to kill one Nicholas de Ga and his wife by secret means for a reward of Rs. 5000. Similar information was also conveyed to Khan Bahadur Mir Akbar Ali, head of the detective police. Mr. R. H. Vincent, who was then acting Deputy Commissioner, Mir Akbar Ali, Mir Abdul Ali, Superintendent Mills and an European inspector concealed themselves behind a bamboo partition-wall in the Fakir's house in Kamathipura and thus overheard details of the plot against the de Gas. It transpired that Mrs. de Ga was entitled to certain property, of which the Parsi solicitor and a Mrs. Pennell were executors; and having mismanaged the property, the latter were anxious to obviate all chance of inquiry by the interested parties into their misconduct. The solicitor and his Hindu accomplice were both convicted. A curious case occurred in 1874, when Mr. James Hall of the Survey Department was accused of causing the death in Balasinor of three Indian troopers, attached to that department, and was adjudged at his trial to be of unsound mind. The murder of a European broker named Roonan by a European Portuguese, de Britto, in 1877 caused some temporary excitement, as also did a murder in the compound of H. H. the Aga Khan's house in Mazagon, perpetrated at a moment when most of the Khoja residents had gone to Byculla railway station to receive the corpse of the late Aga Ali Shah.

The growth of intemperance was a noticeable feature of the period. In 1866-67, the Senior Magistrate, Mr. Barton, advocated more drastic restrictions on the sale of liquor, and in 1871 the Bombay Government commented upon the excessive prevalence of drinking, which was the immediate cause of twenty-one deaths in that year. In 1876 drunkenness was reported to have increased greatly among Indian women of the lower classes; a further increase was reported in 1884, when 4,800 persons, including 224 Europeans, were charged with this offence; and in 1886 the total number of cases had risen to nearly 7,000. While the growth of a floating European population, connected with the harbour and shipping, certainly contributed to swell the returns of intemperance, the main causes underlying the increase were the rapid expansion of the textile industry and the growth of the industrial population, which, in the absence of facilities for decent recreation and in consequence of scandalous housing-conditions, was prone to drown its discomforts by resort to the nearest liquor-shop. Not a few of the problems, which still confront the Bombay executive authorities, can be traced back to this period when a large and important industry was suddenly developed by the genius and capacity of a number of Indian merchants, and a huge lower-class population, almost wholly illiterate and lacking moral and physical stamina, was introduced into the restricted area of the Island at a rate which defied all efforts to provide for its proper accommodation.

The criminality of Europeans was due to specific causes connected with the growth of the port. As early as 1867 the prevalence of low freights and the difficulty of obtaining employment afloat or ashore led to much distress and crime among European seamen, and the Police were forced to undertake the task of finding work for some of this floating population and of shipping others to Europe. On the opening of the Suez Canal at the end of 1869, the old sailing vessels, in which the trade of the port had up to that date been carried on, yielded place to steamers, which remained only a short time in harbour and discharged and took in cargoes by steam-power. To this change in the shipping-arrangements was ascribed the prosecution in 1871 in the magisterial courts of 812 refractory sailors. A gradual improvement, however, took place in consequence of "the facilities of communication afforded by the telegraph", whereby "the amount of tonnage required for merchandize to be exported from Bombay to Europe can be regulated to a nicety. There are far fewer ships in the harbour seeking freight, while the crews of the Canal steamers being engaged for short periods and subject to only a brief detention in the port, the causes which produced discontent are not so prevalent as formerly." Most of the European offenders, as is still the case, belonged to the sea-faring or military classes or to the fluctuating population of vagrants, and it was their conduct, not that of the regular European residents, which caused the proportion of offenders to the whole European population to compare very unfavourably with the proportion in other sects or communities. Much improvement of a permanent character resulted from the opening of the Sailors' Home by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1876, while from 1888 the police were relieved of the duty of prosecution in many cases by a decision of the magistracy that under the Mercantile Marine Act the police should no longer arrest European seamen summarily, but should leave the commanders of vessels to obtain process from the courts against defaulting members of their crews.

The Parsis were greatly dissatisfied with the attitude of the authorities and subsequently submitted a memorial to the Secretary of State, begging that an enquiry might be held into the rioting and blaming the police for apathy and the Government for not at once sending military assistance. The Governor's refusal to call out the troops, until the police were on the point of breaking down, was apparently due to his belief that his powers in this direction were restricted. He was subsequently informed by Lord Salisbury that extreme constitutional theories could not safely be imported into India, and that therefore troops might legitimately be used to render a riot impossible. The Secretary of State to this extent endorsed the views of the Parsi community, which felt that it had not been adequately protected.

From time to time the arrival of distinguished visitors threw an additional strain upon the police; and much of the success of the arrangements on these occasions must be attributed to the energy of the Deputy Commissioners of Police and the European Superintendents of the force. At the commencement of this period the Deputy Commissioner was Mr. Edginton, who had served under Mr. Forjett and shared with him the burdens of 1857. In 1865 he was deputed to England to qualify himself for the office of chief of a steam fire-brigade, then about to be introduced into Bombay, and he is mentioned as acting Commissioner of Police in 1874. During a further period of furlough in 1872, his place was taken by Mr. R. H. Vincent, and in 1884 permanently by Mr. Gell, both of whom were destined subsequently to succeed to the command of the force. Among the occasions demanding special police arrangements were the visit of the Viceroy, Lord Northbrook, in 1872, of the Duke of Edinburgh in 1870, of the Prince of Wales in 1875, of the Duke and Duchess of Connaught in 1883, the departure of Lord Ripon in 1884 and the Jubilee celebrations of 1887. The general character of the police administration is well illustrated by the statement of Sir Richard Temple that "the police, under the able management of Sir Frank Souter, was a really efficient body and popular withal," and by the words of Mr. C. P. Cooper, Senior Magistrate of Police, in 1875 that "during the time H. R. H. the Prince of Wales was in Bombay , when the City was much crowded with Native Chiefs and their followers, and by people from many parts of India, and when all the officers of the Department were on duty nearly the whole of the day and night, the Magistrates had, if any thing, less work than on ordinary occasions. This result was due to excellent police arrangements." These eulogies were rendered possible by the hard work of successive Deputy Commissioners and of the non-gazetted officers of the police force.

In 1885 the Bombay Government sanctioned the building of a new Head Police Office opposite the Arthur Crawford market. This work, however, was not commenced till the end of 1894, and the building was not occupied till 1899; and meantime the Commissioner annually urged upon Government the need of adding barracks for the constabulary to the proposed headquarters, on the grounds that the chosen site was far more convenient than that of the old police office and lines at Byculla, both for keeping in touch with the pulse of the City and for concentrating reinforcements during seasons of popular excitement and disturbance. Further relief for the European police was also secured in 1888 by the completion of the Esplanade Police Court, which superseded an old and unsuitable building in Hornby road, occupied for many years by the courts of the Senior and Third Magistrates. Quarters for a limited number of European police officers were provided on the third floor of the new building, which was opened in May, 1889.

Sir Frank Souter relinquished his office on April 30th, 1888, and retired to the Nilgiris in the Madras Presidency, where he died in the following July. Thus ended a remarkable epoch in the annals of the Bombay Police. It says much for the administrative capacity of the Commissioner that, in spite of an inadequate police-force and the difficulties alluded to in a previous paragraph, he was able to cope successfully with crime and maintain the peace of the City unbroken for fourteen years. Frequent references in their reviews of his annual reports show that the Bombay Government fully realized the valuable character of his services, while the confidence which he inspired in the public is proved by the testimony of trained observers like Sir Richard Temple, by the great memorial meeting held in Bombay after his death, at which Sir Dinshaw Petit moved a resolution of condolence with his family, and by the erection of the marble bust which still adorns the council-hall of the Municipal Corporation. His own subordinates, both European and Indian, regretted his departure perhaps more keenly than others, for he occupied towards them an almost patriarchal position. All ranks had learnt by long experience to appreciate his vigour and determination and his even-handed justice, which, while based upon a high standard of efficiency and integrity, was not blind to the many temptations, difficulties and discouragements that beset the daily life of an Indian constable. Realizing how much he had done to advance their interests and secure their welfare during nearly a quarter of a century, the Police Force paid its last tribute of respect to the Commissioner by subscribing the cost of the marble bust by Roscoe Mullins, which stands in front of the main entrance of the present Head Police Office.

The memory of Sir Frank Souter is likely to endure long after the last of the men who served under him has earned his final discharge, for he was gifted with a personality which impressed itself upon the imagination of all those who came in contact with him. More than twenty years after his death, the writer of this book watched an old and grizzled Jemadar turn aside as he left the entrance of the Head Police Office and halt in front of the bust. There he drew himself smartly to attention and gravely saluted the marble simulacrum of the dead Commissioner--an act of respect which illustrated more vividly than any written record the personal qualities which distinguished Sir Frank Souter during his long and successful career in India.

LIEUT.-COLONEL W. H. WILSON

Like Sir Frank Souter, he also found the lack of police-stations and buildings a serious obstacle to efficient administration. Within a few months of assuming office he reported that the building at Byculla, in which he worked, was very inconvenient and too far distant from the business quarters of the City, and he urged the early construction of the proposed Head Police Office on Hornby road. He reiterated his demands in 1890, 1891, and 1892, stating that no real improvement could be effected until that office and additional quarters for the men were constructed. As mentioned in the preceding chapter, accommodation was provided for two European police officers in the Esplanade Police Court, which was occupied for the first time in 1889; while in the last year of his tenure of office, the divisional police secured some extra accommodation by the full use of the old Maharbaudi building, which had proved inconvenient to the public and was therefore vacated in 1893 by the Second Presidency Magistrate in favour of a Government building in Nesbit Lane, Mazagon. In the latter building also accommodation was provided for two European police officers.

The capabilities of the detective police were tested by several serious crimes. The first, known as the Dadar Triple Murder, occurred in 1888 and aroused considerable public interest. Two Parsi women and a little boy, residing in Lady Jamshedji road, were brutally murdered by a Hindu servant, who was in due course traced, tried and executed. In 1890 the murder of a Hindu youth at Clerk Road was successfully detected, and this was followed in 1891 by the Khambekar Street poisoning case, in which a respectable and wealthy family of Memons were killed by a dissolute son of the house. The police investigation, which ended in the trial and conviction of the murderer, was greatly obstructed by the collateral relatives of the family, who made every effort to render the enquiry abortive and were actively assisted by the whole Memon community.

These crimes, however, were cast into the shade by the famous Rajabai Tower case, which caused great public agitation. On April 25th, 1891, two Parsi girls, Pherozebai and Bacchubai, aged respectively 16 and 20 years, were found lying at the foot of the Rajabai Clock Tower, in circumstances and under conditions which indicated that they had been thrown from above. When discovered, one of the girls was dead, and the other so seriously injured that she expired within a few minutes. Suspicion fell upon a Parsi named Manekji and certain other persons: but the latter were released shortly after arrest, as there was no evidence that they were in any way concerned in the death of the two girls. The Coroner's jury, after nineteen sittings, gave a verdict that Bacchubai had thrown herself from the tower in consequence of an attempted outrage upon her by some person or persons unknown, and that Manekji was privy to the attempted outrage; and further that Pherozebai had been thrown from the tower by Manekji, in order to prevent her giving information of the attempt to outrage herself and her friend. Manekji was tried by the High Court on a charge of murder and was acquitted. Various rumours were afloat as to the identity of the chief actors in the crime, among those suspected being a young Muhammadan belonging to a leading Bombay family. No further clue was ever obtained, and to this day the true facts are shrouded in mystery.

The police dealt successfully with an important case of forgery, in which counterfeit stamps of the value of one rupee were very cleverly forged by a man who had previously served in the Trigonometrical Survey Department of the Government of India and was afterwards proved to have belonged to a gang of expert forgers in Poona. The collapse of a newly-built house prompted Superintendent Brewin to make a lengthy and careful inquiry into all the details of construction, which ended successfully in the prosecution and punishment of the two jerry-builders who erected it. House-collapses are not unknown in Bombay, particularly during the monsoon, when the weight of the wet tiles causes the posts of wooden-frame dwellings to give way; but so far as is known, the case quoted is the only instance on record of a builder being prosecuted and punished under the criminal law for causing loss of life by careless or defective construction. The Sirdar Abdul Ali was equally successful in unravelling an important case of illicit traffic in arms and ammunition carried on by a gang of Pathans with certain transfrontier outlaws--a matter in which the Government of India at that date took considerable interest.

European women of this class are found only in the chief maritime cities of India--Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Karachi and Rangoon, the only places in India which contain a considerable miscellaneous European population. Their total number is not large. Some of them doubtless were originally victims of the "white-slave" trafficker; but their first initiation to the life happened several years before they found their way to India, with funds advanced to them by the pimp or, as they style him in their jargon, "the fancy-man" who first led them astray. There have been instances in Bombay of these women contriving to accumulate sufficient savings in the course of ten or twelve years' continuous prostitution to enable them either to purchase the good-will of a recognized brothel or to return to their own country and settle down there in comparative respectability. One or two, with their savings behind them, have been able to find a husband who was prepared to turn a blind eye to their past. Thus has lower middle-class respectability been secured at the price of years of flaming immorality. But such cases are rare. These women as a class are wasteful and improvident, and are prone to spend all their earnings on their personal tastes and adornment. Most of them also, as remarked above, have become acquainted early in their career with a procurer, usually a Jew of low type, who swoops down at intervals from Europe upon the brothel in which they happen to be serving and there relieves them of such money as they may have saved after paying the recognized 50 per cent to the "mistress" of the house.

During Colonel Wilson's Commissionership little mention is made of action by the police against the foreign procurer. The latter was probably not so much in evidence as he was at a later date. The opening years of the twentieth century witnessed a change, however, in this respect, and a short time before the outbreak of the Great War, the Government of India made a special enquiry into the scope and character of European prostitution in India, in consequence of the submission to the Imperial Legislature of a private Bill designed to suppress the evil. The report on the subject submitted at that date by the Commissioner of Police, Bombay, was directly responsible for a decision to give the police wider powers of control over the casual visits of European procurers--a decision which was carried into effect after the close of the War by strengthening the provisions of the local Police Act and the Foreigners Act. In 1921 the Government of India was represented at an International Conference on the Traffic in Women and Children, held at Geneva under the auspices of the League of Nations; and shortly afterwards India became a signatory of the International Convention of 1910, by which all the States concerned bind themselves to carry out certain measures designed to check and ultimately to abolish the traffic.

There is little else to chronicle concerning the work of the police under Colonel Wilson. The arrangements for the visits of the late Prince Albert Victor and the Cesarewitch in 1890 were carried through without a hitch, despite the acknowledged inadequacy of the force. The annual Moslem pilgrimage to Mecca brought to Bombay yearly about 8000 pilgrims, whose passports and steamer-tickets were supplied by Messrs. Thomas Cook and Sons, the general supervision of the pilgrims and their embarkation at the docks being performed by the Protector of Pilgrims and a small staff, in collaboration with the Port Health officer. The period was remarkable for the establishment of several temperance movements in various parts of the City, which were declared in 1891 to have imposed a check upon wholesale drunkenness. No diminution, however, of the volume of crime against property was recorded, despite the activities of the Detective Branch and the action taken by the divisional police against receivers of stolen property, of whom 80 were convicted in 1889 and 64 in the following year. The property annually recovered by the police in cases of theft and house-breaking amounted to about 50 per cent of the value stolen, the paucity of the constabulary being the chief reason for the non-detection of constant thefts and burglaries which occurred in Mahim and other outlying areas. Considering how greatly he was handicapped by lack of numbers, ill-health among the rank and file, and the absence of proper accommodation for both officers and men, Colonel Wilson's administration may be said to have been fairly successful. Fortunately he was spared the task of dealing with any serious outbreak of disorder, such as occurred during the early days of his successor's term of office.

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