harbour, in addition to which there are three large batteries on the
mainland. There is also a torpedo-boat detachment stationed in the
harbour.
No city in the world has a finer water-front than Bombay. The great line
of public offices along the esplanade and facing Back Bay, which are in
the Gothic style mixed with Saracenic, are not individually
distinguished for architectural merit, but they have a cumulative effect
of great dignity. The other most notable buildings in the city are the
Victoria terminus of the Great Indian Peninsula railway and the Taj
Mahal hotel. Towards the northern end of Malabar hill lie the Parsee
Towers of Silence, where the Parsees expose their dead till the flesh is
devoured by vultures, and then cast the bones into a well where they
crumble into dust. The foundation-stone of a museum was laid by the
prince of Wales in 1905.
_Local Government._--The port of Bombay (including docks and warehouses)
is managed by a port trust, the members of which are nominated by the
government from among the commercial community. The municipal government
of the city was framed by an act of the Bombay legislative council
passed in 1888. The governing body consists of a municipal corporation
and a town council. The corporation is composed of 72 members, of whom
16 are nominated by the government. Of the remainder, 36 are elected by
the ratepayers, 16 by the justices of the peace, 2 by the senate of the
university, and 2 by the chamber of commerce. The council, which forms
the standing committee of the corporation, consists of 12 members, of
whom 4 are nominated by the government and the rest elected by the
corporation. The members of the corporation include Europeans, Hindus,
Mahommedans and Parsees. The Bombay University was constituted in 1857
as an examining body, on the model of the university of London. The
chief educational institutions in Bombay City are the government
Elphinstone College, two missionary colleges (Wilson and St Xavier), the
Grant medical college, the government law school, the Sir Jamsetjee
Jeejeebhoy school of art, and the Victoria Jubilee technical institute.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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