In 1885 the Bombay Government sanctioned the building of a new Head Police Office opposite the Arthur Crawford market. This work, however, was not commenced till the end of 1894, and the building was not occupied till 1899; and meantime the Commissioner annually urged upon Government the need of adding barracks for the constabulary to the proposed headquarters, on the grounds that the chosen site was far more convenient than that of the old police office (built in 1882) and lines at Byculla, both for keeping in touch with the pulse of the City and for concentrating reinforcements during seasons of popular excitement and disturbance. Further relief for the European police was also secured in 1888 by the completion of the Esplanade Police Court, which superseded an old and unsuitable building in Hornby road, occupied for many years by the courts of the Senior and Third Magistrates. Quarters for a limited number of European police officers were provided on the third floor of the new building, which was opened in May, 1889. Thus, apart from the task of perfecting arrangements for the prevention and detection of crime on the foundations laid by Sir Frank Souter, the chief problem which his successors inherited was the proper housing of the police force, in a city where overcrowding and insanitation had become a public scandal. The inconvenient and unpleasant conditions in which the police were obliged to perform their daily duties resulted directly from the phenomenal growth of Bombay since the year 1860, and from the inability of the Government to allot sufficient funds for keeping the police administration abreast of the social and commercial development of the city. During his long _régime_ of twenty-four years Sir Frank Souter saw the extension of the B. B. and C. I. Railway to Bombay, the opening of regular communication by rail with the Deccan and Southern Maratha Country, the construction of the Suez Canal and the appearance in Bombay of six or seven European steamship-companies, the feverish prosecution of reclamation of land from the sea, which increased the area of the Island from 18 to 22 square miles, the construction of many new roads and overbridges, the building of great water-works, the projection of drainage schemes, and the lighting of the streets with gas. He witnessed the old divisions of the Island develop into municipal wards and sections; saw the opening of the Prince’s, Victoria and Merewether docks; saw the first tramway lines laid in 1872, and watched the once rural area to the north of the Old Town develop into the busy industrial sections of Tardeo, Nagpada, Byculla, Chinchpugli and Parel. The number of cotton-spinning and weaving mills increased from 10 in 1870 to 70 at the date of his retirement, and the urban population increased _pari passu_ with this expansion of trade and industrial enterprise. Between 1872 and 1881 the population increased from 644,405 to 773,196, and by