It is possible that long after the details of the reorganization of the police force have passed into oblivion, Mr. Edwardes’ tenure of office will be remembered for the abolition of the dangerous and rowdy side of the annual Muharram celebration. At the time he was appointed Commissioner, the Muharram, which had been a cause of excitement and anxiety from the days of Forjett, had degenerated into an annual scandal and become a menace to the peace of the city. No respectable Musalman took part in the annual procession of _tabuts_, nor would permit his family to visit the _tazias_ and _tabuts_ during the ten days of the festival, for fear of insult and annoyance from the _badmashes_ and hooligans, who chose the sites of the _tabuts_ in the various _mohollas_ as their gathering-ground. The cost of building and decorating each _tazia_ and _tabut_ was defrayed by a public subscription, which had degenerated into pure and simple blackmail, levied by the less respectable denizens of each _moholla_ upon the general public. The Marwadi and other Hindu merchants suffered particularly from this practice; at times they were threatened with physical injury if they did not subscribe; on other occasions the collecting-party, composed of four or five Muhammadan roughs, would visit the shops of the Jain merchants, carrying a dead rat, and threaten to drop it into the heaps of grain and sugar if the shop-owner did not forthwith hand out a fair sum. By the exercise of pressure and threats, some _mohollas_ contrived to raise comparatively large sums, aggregating several hundred rupees, and as only a fractional portion of this money was required to defray the cost of the _tabut_ and the paraphernalia of the final procession, the balance was devoted to the support of the hooligans of the _mohollas_ during the following few months. Attached to each _tabut_, and accompanying it whenever it was carried out in procession, was a _toli_ or band of attendants, usually varying in numbers from 50 to 200 and composed of the riff-raff of the lower quarters. In some cases these _tolis_ had been gradually allowed to assume a gigantic size, as for example that of the Julhai weavers of Ripon road (Madanpura), which comprised from two to three thousand men, all armed with _lathis_ tipped with brass or lead. Similarly the notorious Rangari _moholla_ (Abdul Rehman street), Halai Memon _moholla_, Kolsa _moholla_ and Chuna Batti _moholla_, could count upon turning out several thousand followers, armed with sticks and staves, who could be trusted to render a good account of themselves if there was a breach of the public peace.