CHAPTER VI

MR. R. H. VINCENT, C.I.E.

1893-1898

When Colonel Wilson left Bombay for England in April, 1893, his place was taken by Mr. R. H. Vincent, who had previously acted as Deputy Commissioner for a few months in 1872. A foreigner by birth, Mr. Vincent had served in his youth in the Foreign Legion of Garibaldi’s army. He came subsequently to India and obtained an appointment in the Bombay District Police, in which his linguistic faculties and general capacity soon marked him out for promotion. He was appointed Acting Commissioner in April and was confirmed in the appointment shortly afterwards, when Colonel Wilson sent in his papers. His five years of office were remarkable for two grave outbreaks of disorder, one of them being the most serious riot that ever occurred in Bombay, for the outbreak of plague, which threw an enormous extra strain upon the police-force, and thirdly for the initiation by political agitators of the public Ganpati festivals, which supplied a direct incitement to sedition and disorder.

A reorganization of the police-force was finally sanctioned by Government in an order of August 28th, 1893, in consequence whereof the strength of the force at the close of that year was reported to be 1831, exclusive of 99 harbour police paid for by the Port Trustees. The extra number of men, coupled with revised rates of pay and allowances, brought the annual cost of the force to Rs. 518,078. A further addition to the force was sanctioned at the beginning of 1894, the net increase of men enlisted during that year being 287, of whom five were Europeans, fourteen were native officers, and fifty-three were mounted police. The armed police were augmented by 66 men and the unarmed by 140, including 15 European and 11 Indian officers. The mounted police were placed under the command of an Inspector named Sheehy, specially recruited from a British cavalry regiment. In consequence of these additions, the Commissioner at the close of 1894 was in command of a total force (exclusive of the harbour police) of 2111, costing annually Rs. 710,528. The harbour police were also increased to 114 in 1895.

Excluding a small body of seven constables recruited in 1896 for special duty under the Glanders and Farcy Act, the sanctioned strength and cost of the force remained unaltered during the last three years of Mr. Vincent’s term of office. The number, though more adequate than in Colonel Wilson’s time, was yet barely sufficient to cope with all the duties imposed upon the force, while the advent of the plague and other events aggravated the strain. During the decade following upon Mr. Vincent’s retirement appeals for more men were followed by spasmodic additions to the force until the publication in 1905 of the report of the Police Commission appointed by Lord Curzon. This resulted in a thorough scrutiny of the various police administrations and led in the case of Bombay to the preparation of a new and radical scheme of reform.

In the matter of crime, the period of Mr. Vincent’s Commissionership was remarkable for several murders, fifteen of which occurred in the year 1893. One of the most sensational crimes was the “double murder” at Walkeshwar in April 1897, when a Bhattia merchant and his sister were killed in a house near the temple by a gang of six men, all of whom were traced and arrested by the police after a protracted and difficult investigation. Five of the culprits were eventually hanged. The police were also successful in 1893 in breaking up two gangs of _dhatura_-poisoners, who had robbed a large number of people. In 1895 Superintendent Brewin, with the help of the Sirdar Abdul Ali and his detectives, successfully unravelled a case of poisoning, perpetrated with the object of defrauding the Sun Life Assurance Company. A Goanese named Fonseca insured the life of a friend, Duarte, with the company and shortly afterwards administered to him a dose of arsenic, which he had obtained from a European employed in Stephens’ stables, who used the poison for killing rats. Prior to insuring Duarte’s life, Fonseca had him medically examined by two Indian Christian doctors of Portuguese descent, well-known in Bombay, who made a very perfunctory examination. Subsequently, when Fonseca asked them to certify the cause of Duarte’s death, they acted even more negligently and gave a certificate of death from natural causes without any inquiry. Certain facts, however, aroused the suspicions of the manager of the Assurance Company; the police were called in; and in due course Fonseca was tried and convicted of murder.

The records of 1893 mention the arrest and conviction of a leading member of the famous _Sonari Toli_ or Golden Gang of swindlers, which for some time made a lucrative livelihood by fleecing the more credulous section of the public. But in the case of ordinary theft and robbery the police were less successful in recovering stolen property than in previous years, the percentage of recovery for the five years ending in 1894 being only 48 and declining to 35 in 1898. Much of this crime was committed by professional bad characters and members of criminal tribes belonging to the Deccan and other parts of the Bombay Presidency. The prevalence of robbery and theft was viewed with such dissatisfaction by the Bombay Government that in 1894 they urged the Commissioner to make use of the provisions of chapter VIII of the Criminal Procedure Code, which had been applied with much success in up-country districts. Unfortunately the Bombay magistracy required as a rule far more direct evidence of bad livelihood than was procurable by the urban police, and any regular use of that chapter of the Code was therefore declared by the Commissioner to be impracticable.

The court-work of the police under the local Act was indirectly affected by the closing of the opium-dens of the City in 1893. This was one result of the appointment in that year of a Parliamentary Commission to inquire into the extent of opium consumption in India, its effects on the physique of the people, and the suggestion that the sale of the drug should be prohibited except for medicinal purposes. In consequence of the anti-opium agitation in England, the consumption of opium was from that date permitted only on a small scale in one or two “clubs” in the City, frequented by the lower classes. The opponents of the practice did not foresee that opium-smoking cannot be entirely abolished by laws and regulations, and that the stoppage of supplies of the drug merely results in the public seeking other more disastrous forms of self-indulgence. In Bombay the closing of the opium-shops led directly to a great increase of drunkenness,[105] and a few years later to the far more pernicious and degrading habit of cocaine-eating. The experience of most Bombay police-officers is that the smoking of opium does not _per se_ incite men to commit crime, and when practised in moderation it does not prevent a man from performing his daily work. Cocaine on the other hand destroys its victims body and soul, and the confirmed cocaine-eater usually develops into a criminal, even if he was not one previously.

The practice of affixing bars to the ground-floor rooms in Duncan road, Falkland road and neighbouring lanes, occupied by the lowest class of Indian prostitutes, is usually supposed to have been introduced during the period of Mr. Vincent’s Commissionership. Strangers who visit Bombay, as well as respectable European and Indian residents, are apt to be shocked by the sight of these Mhar, Dhed and other low-caste women sitting behind bars, like caged animals, in rooms opening directly on the street. It is not, however, generally known that the bars were put up, not for the purpose of what has been styled “exhibitionism”, but in order to save the woman from being overwhelmed by a low-class male rabble, ready for violence on the smallest provocation. Before the women barred the front of their squalid rooms, there were constant scenes of disorder, resulting occasionally in injuries to the occupants; and it was on the advice of the police that about this date the women had the bars affixed, which oblige their low-class clientèle to form a queue outside and enable the women to admit one customer at a time. Considering that a prostitute of this class charges only 4 annas for her favours and lives in great squalor, it is not surprising that venereal disease is extremely common, and that the offering of four annas to Venus ends generally in a further expenditure of one or two rupees on quack remedies.

As regards regular police-work, Mr. Vincent made an attempt in 1894 to improve the regulation of traffic on public thoroughfares. This was necessitated by the steady increase of the number of public and private conveyances, the former having risen from 5392 in 1884 to 8301 in 1894, and the latter at the same dates from 2674 to 5416. On the other hand the width of the roads had, with here and there occasional setbacks, remained constant for twenty years, and the majority of the streets were totally inadequate for the increased volume of daily traffic. The Commissioner’s efforts to control traffic more effectively did result in a decrease of street-accidents, but they failed at the same time to meet with “the approval of the entire native community”. Therein lies one of the chief obstacles to efficient traffic-regulation in Bombay. The ordinary Indian constable, though more able and alert than he used to be, is still a poor performer as a regulator of traffic. He is not likely to improve, so long as Indians persist in using the roads in the manner of their forefathers in rural towns and villages, and so long as he is doubtful of the support of the magistracy in cases where he prosecutes foot-passengers and cab-drivers for neglect of his orders and of the rule of the road. Apart also from the possibility of the constable not being supported by the bench, as he usually is in England, the great delays which are liable to occur in the hearing of these trivial cases, through the procrastination of pleaders for the defence, act as a direct discouragement to prosecutions. A real and permanent improvement in traffic conditions cannot be secured, until the Indian public develops “a traffic conscience” and insists upon the relinquishment of ancient and haphazard methods of progression inherited from past centuries.

In the same year (1894) the Commissioner reported that, in accordance with the orders of Government, he had introduced the Bertillon system of anthropometry at the Head Police Office, but he expressed a doubt whether results commensurate with the cost of working would be obtained. The following year he stated definitely that the system was a failure, but was urged by Government to persevere with it. The system, nevertheless, was doomed, and in 1896 was superseded by the far more accurate and successful finger-print system which was introduced into India by Mr. (afterwards Sir Edward) Henry, the Inspector-General of Police in Bengal. Although the Bertillon system was not finally abolished till the end of 1899, Mr. Vincent was able to report in 1898 that a finger-print bureau had been established, that two police officers had been deputed to Poona to learn from Mr. Henry himself the details of the system of criminal identification, and that by the end of the year 300 finger-impressions had been recorded. This was the origin of the Bombay City Finger-Print bureau, which by steadily augmenting its own record of criminals and by interchange of slips with the larger Presidency bureau at Poona, has compiled a very useful reference-work for investigating officers.

The rapid extension of the scope of police work and the need of dealing more quickly and effectively with various classes of offences had for some time impressed upon the local authorities the need for a new police law. The old Act XLVIII of 1860, under which the police worked in the days of Mr. Forjett, had been followed by three successive Town Police Acts, Nos. I of 1872, II of 1879 and IV of 1882. But the provisions of these Acts needed amendment and consolidation to meet the altered conditions of later years; and the Commissioner was justified in saying, as he did in 1898, that the police were “working at a disadvantage and were hampered in many ways” by the want of a comprehensive and intelligible City Police Act, which would enable them to deal effectively with the investigation of crime and the arrest and detention of offenders and with the special offences peculiar to a large city. He expressed a hope that the new City Police Bill, which had been under the consideration of Government for several years, would be enacted without further delay. Four years were still to elapse before this hope was fulfilled by the passing of Bombay Act IV of 1902. In the meanwhile the police, as well as the magistrates,[106] had to perform their respective duties as best they could under the old law. Such success as the police achieved in dealing with crime and other evils was due largely to the energy and experience of the older Divisional Superintendents, such as Messrs. Crummy,[107] Ingram, Grennan, McDermott, Sweeney, Nolan and Brewin, of the Sirdar Mir Abdul Ali, and of tried Indian inspectors like Rao Saheb Tatya Lakshman, Khan Saheb Roshan Ali and Khan Saheb (afterwards Khan Bahadur) Sheikh Ibrahim Sheikh Imam.

Mr. Vincent’s term of office was marked by the first outbreak of plague in the later months of 1896. When the disease first assumed epidemic form, there was a wild panic among all classes, and people fled in crowds from the city, leaving their homes unoccupied and unprotected. This led for the time being to a large increase of offences against property, committed by professional bad characters who took immediate advantage of the general exodus. The decrease of police cases in 1897 was due solely to the fact that the constant demands upon the force for duties connected with plague-inspection and segregation etc., left them no leisure to deal with the criminal classes, who throughout the early days of the epidemic indulged in an orgy of theft and house-breaking. It was estimated in February, 1897, that 400,000 inhabitants had fled from the city, most of whom left their houses entirely unprotected. The Bombay Government was faced with “a difficult and delicate problem—the extent to which it was possible in view of Indian prejudices and convictions to put into force the scientific counsels of perfection pressed upon them by their medical advisers. The doctors drew up plans for house-to-house visitation, disinfection, isolation hospitals, segregation-camps, and inoculation, all of which were intensely distasteful to the Indian population with their caste regulations and their jealousy of any infringement of privacy in their home life.”[108]

The police were constantly requisitioned to assist in one way or another the official attempts to stamp out the epidemic, and considering the extra strain thrown upon them by the various plague-preventive measures, it is surprising that they managed to cope as effectively as they did with their regular duties. In 1897 Mr. Rand of the Indian Civil Service and Lieutenant Ayerst, who had been engaged on plague-work, were assassinated at Poona. In connexion with the inquiry which followed Superintendent Brewin was summoned from Bombay and placed on special duty in Poona. In the following year occurred the plague-riots, to which reference will be made in a later paragraph. The difficulties which confronted the police during the first two or three years of the plague epidemic were aggravated by the unscrupulous campaign against the Government’s precautionary measures conducted by the native Press, and the expedient then adopted of strengthening the law against seditious publications merely served to intensify popular feeling. It was not till after 1898 that the Indian Government, recognizing the genuineness and sincerity of the public opposition to plague-restrictions, abandoned their more stringent rules in favour of milder methods.

In one direction only—the annual pilgrimage to the Hedjaz—may the plague be said to have brought any relief to the overworked police-force. The arrangements made by Messrs. Thomas Cook and Sons for shipping the pilgrims were discontinued about 1892, and in 1893 the Police Commissioner, acting through his pilgrim department and with the aid of the divisional and harbour police, shepherded the large number of 13,500 pilgrims to the embarkation sheds. Approximately the same number sailed in 1895. Directly the plague, however, had firmly established its hold upon Bombay, the annual exodus of pilgrims was prohibited, in response partly to international requirements, and during the remainder of Mr. Vincent’s term of office the Haj traffic practically ceased. A few pilgrims from Central Asia (1300 in 1898) and other distant regions found their way yearly to Bombay, in the hope of proceeding to Mecca: but they were sent back every year to their homes, until the restrictions were removed and the traffic was re-opened.

Upon the health of the police force the plague naturally exercised a disastrous effect. A fairly high percentage of sickness was recorded in 1895 and was ascribed chiefly to overcrowding in squalid tenements. The appearance of plague in the last quarter of 1896 raised the death-roll of that year to 50 and increased the number of admissions to hospital by nearly 300. The experience of 1897 was worse. Eighty-two men died, of whom fifty-two were plague-victims: recruiting for the force entirely ceased. More than 3,000 admissions to hospital were recorded, some of the constables being obliged to undergo treatment there three or four times during the year. To make up in some degree for the deficit, the Commissioner was obliged to take men from the Ramoshi force, which supplies night-guards to shops and offices and is paid by the employers. Many of these semi-official watchmen also succumbed. Several years elapsed before the police-force recovered from the effects of the early years of the plague, when the loss of physical power of resistance to the disease, engendered by continuous overwork, was aggravated by the lack of commodious and sanitary lines and barracks. Those who, like the author, can recall the panic which prevailed in those years, and who day by day and night after night saw the sky above the Queen’s road crimson with the glow of the funeral-pyres in the Hindu burning-ground, will not grudge a tribute of praise to the Indian constables who went about their work unflinchingly, while men were dying around them in hundreds and their own caste-fellows in the factories and the docks were flying from the scourge to their homes in the Deccan and the Konkan.

In 1893 occurred numerous strikes of mill-hands, which interfered to some extent with the ordinary work of the police and caused loss to the textile industry. But these outbreaks were trivial by comparison with the grave Hindu-Muhammadan riots, which broke out on August 11th in that year and afforded startling evidence of the deep sectarian antagonism which underlies the apparently calm surface of Indian social life and may at any moment burst forth in fury. The predisposing cause of the disturbance must be sought in the rioting which had occurred earlier in the year at Prabhas Patan in Kathiawar during the celebration of the Muharram, when a Muhammadan mob had destroyed temples and murdered several Hindus. For a fortnight or more before the outbreak of violence in Bombay, agitators had been at work among the more fanatical elements of the population and were assisted by leading Hindus, who convened large mass-meetings to denounce the authors of the outrages at Prabhas Patan. This agitation aroused intense irritation, which was aggravated by the persistent demand of the Hindus that the killing of cows, and even of sheep and goats, should be prohibited by Government. The Moslem population became fairly persuaded that the Hindus had the sympathy of the authorities and that their religion was in danger. They determined to rise _en masse_ in its defence.

Shortly after midday on Friday, August 11th, a large Muhammadan congregation emerged from the Jama Masjid and amid cries of _Din, Din_ (“the Faith”) commenced to attack an important Hindu temple in Hanuman Lane. The more respectable Moslem worshippers took no part in this attempt to desecrate the temple and held aloof from all violence. But the low-class mob, which was constantly reinforced, took control of the neighbourhood for the time being. Mr. Vincent had foreseen the possibility of an attack upon the Hanuman Lane temple and had kept a large proportion of his force on duty up to 3 a.m. on Friday morning—a precaution which resulted in postponing the rising of the mob for a few hours. When the disturbance began, all but a small body of European and Indian police had been withdrawn for a much-needed rest, and it fell to the lot of these few men to hold the rioters in check, until the arrival of reinforcements drove the mob from the temple. Meanwhile the spirit of revenge spread rapidly, and within a short time the whole of Parel, Kamathipura, Grant road, Mazagon and Tank Bandar were given over to mob-law.

The tumult was enormous. The Muhammadans attacked every Hindu they met; the Hindus retaliated; and then both sides rounded on the police. Stones and _lathis_ (iron-shod bamboo cudgels) were the rioters’ chief weapons, and they were used with murderous effect. Little care was taken by the Muhammadans to confine their attacks to the enemies of the Faith. Peaceful wayfarers were brutally assaulted; tram-cars and carriages were murderously stoned; post-office vans were attacked; messengers carrying money were savagely beaten and openly robbed. The crowds, raging from street to street, demolished Hindu temples, and dragged out and desecrated the idols in the most obscene and shameful manner. The _Chilli-chors_ or Musalman drivers of public conveyances, most of whom hail from the Palanpur State in Kathiawar, stormed the Hindu quarter of Kumbharwada, while the Julhais or Muhammadan weavers from upper India attacked the Pardeshi Hindu milk-merchants and set fire to the milch-cattle stables in Agripada. All business was perforce suspended and the whole city was thrown into the greatest consternation.

Noting the rapid spread of the disorder, Mr. Vincent applied early for military assistance with a view to restricting the area of rioting. At 4 p.m. two companies of the Marine Battalion under Colonel Shortland marched into the City and were followed in quick succession by the 10th Regiment N. I. under Colonel Forjett, son of Mr. Charles Forjett, by the Royal Lancashires under Colonel Ryley, and by a battery of Artillery. The Bombay Volunteer Artillery under Major Roughton and the Bombay Light Horse under Lieutenant Cuffe were also called out. The Government sent reinforcements of British and Indian troops from Poona, and detachments of armed police were also drafted into Bombay from Thana and other districts. The troops, which numbered three thousand with two guns, were under the orders of General Budgen. Eighteen European citizens were appointed Special Magistrates to assist the Presidency Magistrates, Mr. Cooper and Mr. Webb, who were on duty in the streets night and day. The Municipal Commissioner, Mr. H. A. Acworth, and the Health Officer, Dr. Weir, made strenuous efforts to prevent the interruption of the sanitary service of the city, which in some wards temporarily broke down, and of the daily supply of food to the markets. One serious feature of the early part of the disturbance was the refusal of the butchers at Bandora to slaughter any cattle, and it needed prompt and tactful action on the part of Mr. Douglas Bennett, superintendent of municipal markets, to overcome their contumacy.

The troops were posted in various parts of the city and were forced to open fire on several occasions owing to the defiant attitude of the mob, which was being constantly reinforced. A notable instance occurred at the well-known Sulliman Chauki in Grant road, where a detachment of native infantry was so furiously attacked that it had to fire several times to avoid being overwhelmed by the rioters. Despite these measures, the rioting and looting continued on August 12th in all parts of the city, and many murders and assaults occurred also on the 13th. From the evening of the latter date, however, tranquillity gradually supervened, and eventually the efforts of the authorities, aided by the prominent men of both communities, effected a reconciliation between the excited belligerents.

The effects of the outbreak were for the time being serious. All business in the City was suspended for nearly ten days, and fifty thousand people, chiefly women and children, fled from Bombay to their homes up-country. About one hundred persons were killed, and nearly 800 were wounded, during the progress of the rioting, while the loss of property was enormous. The damage done to Hindu temples and Moslem mosques amounted respectively to Rs. 51,300 and Rs. 23,200, exclusive of the property stolen from them, which was estimated to be worth nearly 2 lakhs of rupees. During and for a few days after the disturbances, when the police were fully occupied in efforts to restore order and in prosecuting fifteen hundred persons arrested during the rioting, a great many cases of robbery, house-trespass and theft occurred, which, though registered by the police, could not be investigated and were never brought to court.

The second serious outbreak occurred in the last year of Mr. Vincent’s term of office, and was due directly to the hostility of the public to the measures adopted by Government for combating the plague. The Julhais, or Jolahas, professional hand-weavers from the United Provinces, who have for many years formed a colony in the streets and lanes adjoining Ripon road, compose one of the most ignorant and fanatical sections of Muhammadans. The trouble commenced on March 9, 1898, with an attempt by a party of plague-searchers to remove a sufferer from a Julhai house in Ripon cross road. The Julhais in a body took alarm, seized their _lathis_ and any weapon that came to hand, and attacked a body of police who had been sent to keep order and protect the plague-authorities. The position rapidly became serious; and as the mob refused to disperse and showed signs of increasing violence, the third Presidency Magistrate, Mr. P. H. Dastur, who had been summoned to the spot and had himself been slightly wounded by a stone, ordered the police to fire. This served for the moment to disperse the Julhai mob. But in a very short time the disorder spread to Bellasis, Duncan, Babula Tank, Grant, Parel, Falkland and Foras roads, where many Hindus were celebrating the last day of the annual Holi festival by idling and drinking. The rioters tried to set fire to the plague hospitals; murdered two English soldiers of the Shropshire Regiment in Grant road; burned down the gallows-screen near the jail; and tried to destroy the fire-brigade station in Babula Tank road. On this occasion also the Muhammadan butchers at the Bandora slaughter-house refused to do their work, but were eventually forced to remain on duty by Mr. Douglas Bennett, who hurried to Bandora with a small body of native infantry and taught the refractory a sound lesson. An unpleasant feature of the rioting was the attacks by the mob on isolated Europeans, several of whom were protected in the pluckiest manner by Indians of the lower classes. The outbreak was quickly quelled by military, naval and volunteer forces, who were wisely called out on the first sign of trouble. By the following day peace was restored. The casualties were officially stated to be 19 killed and 42 wounded, and the police arrested 247 persons for rioting, of whom 205 were convicted and sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment.

The Hindu-Muhammadan riots of 1893 were directly responsible for the establishment in Western India of the annual _public_ celebrations in honour of the Hindu god Ganpati, which subsequently developed into one of the chief features of the anti-British revolutionary movement in India.[109] The riots left behind them a bitter legacy of sectarian rancour, which Bal Gangadhar Tilak utilized for broadening his new anti-British movement, by enlisting in its support the ancient Hindu antagonism to Islam. “He not only convoked popular meetings in which his fiery eloquence denounced the Muhammadans as the sworn foes of Hinduism, but he started an organization known as the “Anti-Cow-Killing Society,” which was intended and regarded as a direct provocation to the Muhammadans, who, like ourselves, think it no sacrilege to eat beef.” As his propaganda grew, assuming steadily a more anti-British character, Tilak decided to invest it with a definitely religious sanction, by placing it under the special patronage of the elephant-headed god Ganesh or Ganpati. In order to widen the breach between Hindus and Muhammadans, he and his co-agitators determined to organize annual festivals in honour of the god on the lines which had become familiar in the annual Muhammadan celebration of the Muharram. Their object was to make the procession, in which the god is borne to his final resting-place in the water, as offensive as possible to Moslem feelings by imitating closely the Muharram procession, when the _tazias_ and _tabuts_, representing the tombs of the martyrs at Kerbela, are immersed in the river or sea.

Accordingly, on the approach of the Ganpati festival in September, 1894, Tilak and his party inaugurated a _Sarvajanik Ganpati_ or public Ganpati celebration, providing for the worship of the god in places accessible to the public (it had till then been a domestic ceremony), and arranging that the images of Ganpati should have their _melas_ or groups of attendants, like the Musalman _tolis_ attending upon the _tabuts_. The members of these _melas_ were trained in the art of fencing with sticks and other physical exercises. During the ten days of the festival, bands of young Hindus gave theatrical performances and sang religious songs, in which the legends of Hindu mythology were skilfully exploited to arouse hatred of the “foreigner,” the word _mlenccha_ or “foreigner” being applied equally to Europeans and Muhammadans. As the movement grew, leaflets were circulated, urging the Marathas to rebel as Shivaji did, and declaring that a religious outbreak should be the first step towards the overthrow of an alien power. As may be imagined, these Ganpati processions, which took place on the tenth day of the festival, were productive of much tumult and were well calculated to promote affrays with the Muhammadans and the police. A striking instance occurred in Poona, where a mela of 70 Hindus deliberately outraged Moslem sentiment by playing music and brawling outside a mosque during the hour of prayer.

These celebrations helped to intensify Tilak’s seditious propaganda; and although they are barely mentioned in the annual reports of the Police Commissioner, they had become firmly established in Bombay and other places by the date of Mr. Vincent’s retirement, and were destined to impose a heavy burden of extra work on the police-force for several years to come. At the present date the public celebration of the _Ganesh Chaturthi_ still takes place and necessitates special traffic arrangements, when the crowds pour out of the city to immerse the clay-images of the god in Back Bay. But the more disturbing political features of the festival have gradually disappeared. This change may be held to date roughly from Tilak’s second trial for sedition and conviction in 1908, which dealt a severe blow to the seditious side of the movement. A few _melas_ appeared in the following years; but the strength of the movement was broken by the incarceration of the leader of the Extremists and by judicious action on the part of the divisional and detective police.

This brief record of the period 1893 to 1898 will suffice to show that any improvement in the prevention and detection of crime, which might have been expected to follow on the increase in the numbers of the police force, was largely discounted by outbreaks of disorder and by the prevalence of a disastrous epidemic. With his police constantly being summoned to assist in plague-operations of a difficult character, and being forced in consequence of overwork and illness to seek constant treatment in hospital, the Commissioner was scarcely able to insist upon a standard of police-work suitable to normal times. In spite, however, of these difficulties and of additional work of a novel character arising out of the gradual spread of the anti-British revolutionary movement, the Bombay police under Mr. Vincent’s control contrived to achieve reasonable success in their dealings with the criminal elements of the population, and set an example of adherence to duty under very trying conditions which earned more than once the express approbation of the Bombay Government.