The difficulty of providing suitable shelter and guardianship for the many derelict girls of tender age found wandering in the streets by the police led directly to the foundation by the Commissioner of the Abdulla Haji Daud Bavla Muhammadan Girls’ Orphanage. With the possible exception of one or two Christian missionary institutions, to which it would have been impolitic on political and religious grounds to send children, no organization or society existed in 1909, which was prepared to take charge of homeless girls. Consequently, many little waifs gravitated into the brothels of the city or were gradually absorbed in the floating criminal population. Moreover, when a child was found in the streets, homeless and friendless, the police had no shelter to offer her except the cells at the sectional police-station; and these, being regularly filled with the dregs of the criminal population, were a most undesirable environment for girls of tender years. As caste-prejudices offered peculiar obstacles to any scheme for the benefit of Hindu girls belonging to the Shudra class, the Commissioner determined to concentrate his attention upon a home for Muhammadan girls, and accordingly drew up a scheme and issued an appeal, which was widely circulated among the Muhammadan community. The appeal was favourably received, and about 2 lakhs of rupees were collected within a few weeks. To this sum were added more than 3 lakhs from the estate of the late Abdulla Haji Daud Bavla, whose executors offered the amount on condition that the orphanage should bear his name, that his trustees should be represented on the managing committee of the orphanage, and that the objects, constitution and maintenance etc. of the orphanage should be embodied in a legal deed of trust. At the request of the Commissioner, the Bombay Government agreed to become a party to the deed and bound themselves to appoint the Commissioner of Police, or any other of their officers resident for the time being in Bombay, as chairman of the board of trustees of the orphanage. The legal preliminaries having been completed and the funds duly invested in gilt-edged securities, a suitable building was taken on a lease, and furnished at the expense of a philanthropic Muhammadan merchant, and in December, 1910, the orphanage was formally opened by Sir George Clarke (now Lord Sydenham) and Lady Clarke. The institution soon justified its existence; the number of girl-inmates steadily increased, their physical health and welfare being under the general supervision of a trustworthy Englishwoman, and their religious exercises and elementary lessons being given by a Mullani and her assistants. The problem of the girls’ future was solved in the only feasible way by arranging for their marriage with Muhammadans of their own class, as soon as they reached the age of maturity. These hymeneal arrangements were made by a chosen officer of the C. I. D., Khan Saheb M. F. Taki,