In 1887, the year preceding Sir Frank Souter’s retirement and death, the Acting Chief Presidency Magistrate, Mr. Crawley Boevey, displayed a rather more critical attitude than had previously been customary towards the work of the police. He commented unfavourably upon the number of minor offences dealt with under the Police Act, and suggested that the Police sought to raise their percentages by charging large numbers of persons, some of whom were respectable residents, with trivial misdemeanours under local Acts, and that they might devote greater attention to the more serious forms of crime. At the same time Mr. Crawley Boevey evinced the strongest objection to the practice, hitherto followed as a precautionary measure by the constabulary, of searching suspicious characters at night; and he actually convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment an Indian constable who had arrested and searched a townsman in this way, under the authority given by section 35 of the old Police Act XIII of 1856. His decision was reversed on appeal by the High Court: but the practice, which had on several occasions led to the discovery of thefts and furnished clues to current investigations, was nevertheless temporarily abandoned, until Mr. Crawley Boevey had left the magisterial bench. It was resumed under Sir F. Souter’s successor with the full concurrence of the Bombay Government, who recognized that the searching between midnight and 4-30 a.m. of wanderers who were unable to give a good account of themselves, was a valuable measure of precaution in both the prevention and detection of crime. The Commissioner of Police remained responsible for the working of the Fire-Brigade practically up to the date of Sir Frank Souter’s retirement. By 1887, however, the marked expansion of the city and the increase of police-work proper obliged Government to relieve the European police of all fire-brigade duty. The engineers of the Brigade were transferred in that year to the Municipality, and in the following year the whole organization, composed of engineers, firemen, tindals, lascars, coachmen and grooms, became an integral part of the municipal staff under the provisions of the new Municipal Act III of 1888. One of the largest fires dealt with by the Police, prior to the transfer, occurred in 1882, when the Oriental Spinning and Weaving Company’s mill at Colaba, which dated from 1858, was completely destroyed.