Indian Antiquary Vol 54

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 71

MARCH, 1925)
BOOK-NOTICES
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grief on a conviction of corruption in 1790. Crime in his day was as rampant as ever and professional begging by so-called faqirs and jogis was a public nuisance. It is so largely still.
In 1793 a Commission of the Peace was established in Bombay under an Act of Parliament, and Mr. Simon Halliday was appointed to be first Superin. tendent of Police up to 1800. Under his regime, police arrangements outside the Fort were tho. roughly revised and placed under a Deputy Superin. tendent, Mr. James Fisher. At that time the Superintendent had multifarious duties, which were afterwards gradually distributed among other officials.
Crime, however, remained rampant and public protection more than indifferent, untilin 1809 reform was demanded. A Recorder's Court had been established in 1798, but the powers of the Police Superintendont remained very wide, until Sir James Mackintosh, Rocorder, 1803-11, declared them illegal; and indeed the procedure of the police at the time was undoubtedly arbitrary to the European legal mind. So in 1810 & Committee of Enquiry was set up under Mr. Warden, Chief Secrotary to Goverment, which produced a famous document known as Wanden's Report. The Police had become noto. riously inefficient and corrupt, and no wonder, for Halliday's successor as Superintendent was tried for corruption. Warden's Report onded in Regulation I of 1812 which "formed the basis of the police administration of Bombay, until 1856." But Warden demanded the services of an "admirable Crichton" in the Superintendent, and such a person was not forthcoming till 1855, in Mr. Charles Forjett. Con. sequently the new Regulations effected "little or no improvement" in the state of public safety. Every householder "was compelled to employ private watchmen, the forerunners of the modern Ramosi and Bhaya." Punishment of ordinary folk continued to be barbarous, and it was not till 1846 that a Brahman was executed for a crime of violence. In 1832 occurred the serious Parsi-Hindu riots, precursors of many of the like in later years. The causa was thoroughly Indian, as they arose out of & Government order for the destruction of pariahdogs. There may have boon some improvement in general security at this time, but property remained in an unsafe condition. This is not to say that no attempts at improvement were made, for indeed such were constant. To go into a minor mattor, at somo poriod before 1838, the uniform peculiar to the Bombey Polico-sepoy was established dark blue with a yellow head-dress.
One of the causes of failure on the part of the police administration lay in the class of official appointed to the executive control of the force. Thay woro junior military officers, appointed without reference to their capacity for the work, poorly paid and never oncouraged to do well. In 1860
there were serious riots between Parsis and Muham. madans, and the outcry against the police had be. come so great that there was a fresh enquiry in 1856 and Mr. Charles Forjett was appointed Superintendent just before the outbreak of the Mutiny. This was a fortunato appointment indeed. Thereafter the history of the Bombay Police resolves itself into an account of the proceedings of the seven successive Commissionera up to 1816.
Charles Forjett (1855-1863) was a Eurasian (the modern Anglo-Indian). "He owed his later BUCCO8868 as a police officer to three main factors, namely his great linguistic faculty, his wide know. ledge of Indian caste-customs and habite, and his masterly capacity for assuming native disguises." He owes his fame to his action during the Mutiny, but he did many things for the city in his charge and the body he controlled. How he saw where the roal danger was locally in the Mutiny, and how he discovered the plot and met the situation generally is well told by Mr. Edwardes, who writes truly when he says: "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." Forjatt lived on in England in dignified retirement in the enjoyment of many well-earned rewards till 1890.
He was succeeded by an equally capable man, Sir Frank Souter (1864-1888), in whom the city was peculiarly fortunato, as he was in charge for 24 years. In the last years of Forjett there had been an enormous increase of every kind in Bombay, due to the profits in cotton during the American Civil War, including a great influx of bad characters. There was accordingly a re-organisation of Police, but not of the Magistracy till 1877, and it was not till 1883 that the Police Commissioner began to issue reports on the working of his department. His great difficulty was the under-manning of the force, and for one reason and another that has been the trouble of all his successors. In Souter's time too, commenced another trouble, the annual pilgrimage to Mocca from Bombay, nowadays & matter of great consequence owing to increased facility for travel. He had to face alsd serious riote, Sunni and Shia in 1872 and Parsi-Muhammadan in 1874, which were partly aggravated by the extreme constitutional theories of the Governor. An injudicious police magistrate also interfered disastrously in the searching of suspicious characters at night. Another now difficulty arose at this time, due to facilities of travel, in the care and guarding of distinguished visitors, and yet another in the matter of housing the police, which it took the Government 14 years to rectify after admitting it immediste importance. All this and much more Sir Frank Bouter had to face, and during his long administration the city had progressed in size and importance almost beyond beliel.