--------+----------------+-----------------+------------------ Period | | | Constable of | Senior | Junior | or Office | Magistrate | Magistrate | Supdt. of Police --------+----------------+-----------------+------------------ 1829-33 | J. D. de Vitré | H. Gray | José Antonio. 1834 | J. Warden | Do. | Do. | | +------------------ | | | Supdt. of Police | | +------------------ 1835-39 | J. Warden | H. Willis | Capt. Shortt 1840 | J. Warden | E. F. Danvers | Capt. Burrows 1841-45 | P. W. Le Geyt | Do. | Do. 1846 | G. L. Farrant | Do. | Capt. W. Curtis 1847-48 | G. Grant | Do. | Do. 1849 | Do. | Do. | Capt. E. Baynes 1850-51 | A. Spens | Do. | Do. 1852-53 | Do. | L. C. C. Rivett | Do. 1854-55 | A. K. Corfield | T. Thornton | Do. --------+----------------+-----------------+------------------ It will be apparent from this list that from 1835 to 1855 the executive control of the Police force was entrusted to a series of junior officers belonging to the Company’s military forces, who probably possessed little or no aptitude for police work, were poorly paid for their services, and had no real encouragement to make their mark in civil employ. Consequently, despite increased expenditure on the force, these military Superintendents of Police secured very little control over the criminal classes, and effected no real improvement in the _morale_ of their subordinates. In 1844, for example, a succession of daring robberies was carried out in the Harbour by gangs of criminals, who sailed round in boats from Back Bay. The most notorious of them was known as the Bandar Gang[54]; and their unchecked excesses led to the formation of a separate floating police-force under the control of a Deputy Superintendent on Rs. 500 a month. House-breaking was of daily occurrence in Colaba, Sonapur, Kalbadevi and Girgaum,[55] and constant complaints of dishonesty among the European constables and of the gross inefficiency of the native rank and file were made to the authorities by both public bodies and private residents.[56] Corruption was prevalent in all ranks of the force, and most of the subordinate officers, both European and Indian, were in secret collusion with agents and go-betweens, some of them members of the higher Hindu castes, who assisted their acts of extortion and blackmail and shared with them the proceeds of their venality. Bands of ruffians infested the thoroughfares and lanes of the native city, and no respectable resident dared venture unprotected into the streets after nightfall.