The Bombay City Police

The Bombay City Police is a historical sketch, 1672-1916, by S. M. Edwardes. The preface says its writer was prompted to prepare this brief record of the past history and growth of the Bombay Police Force by the knowledge that, except for a few paragraphs in Volume II of the Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island, no connected account exists of the police administration of the City. The sketch says that 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.

The sketch says 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. The writer says that he and Mr. Gadney visited the B division tabuts, talked with the tabut wallas, and endeavoured to allay the tension, which was obviously spreading through the Musalman quarter. The writer says the Bara Imam Sandal procession serves as the barometer of the Moharram, and its non-appearance in the streets usually indicates storm.