(afterwards Khan Bahadur) Sheikh Ibrahim Sheikh Imam. [Illustration: KHAN BAHADUR SHEIKH IBRAHIM SHEIKH IMAM Joined the Force, 1864—Retired, 1911.] Mr. Vincent’s term of office was marked by the first outbreak of plague in the later months of 1896. When the disease first assumed epidemic form, there was a wild panic among all classes, and people fled in crowds from the city, leaving their homes unoccupied and unprotected. This led for the time being to a large increase of offences against property, committed by professional bad characters who took immediate advantage of the general exodus. The decrease of police cases in 1897 was due solely to the fact that the constant demands upon the force for duties connected with plague-inspection and segregation etc., left them no leisure to deal with the criminal classes, who throughout the early days of the epidemic indulged in an orgy of theft and house-breaking. It was estimated in February, 1897, that 400,000 inhabitants had fled from the city, most of whom left their houses entirely unprotected. The Bombay Government was faced with “a difficult and delicate problem—the extent to which it was possible in view of Indian prejudices and convictions to put into force the scientific counsels of perfection pressed upon them by their medical advisers. The doctors drew up plans for house-to-house visitation, disinfection, isolation hospitals, segregation-camps, and inoculation, all of which were intensely distasteful to the Indian population with their caste regulations and their jealousy of any infringement of privacy in their home life.”[108] The police were constantly requisitioned to assist in one way or another the official attempts to stamp out the epidemic, and considering the extra strain thrown upon them by the various plague-preventive measures, it is surprising that they managed to cope as effectively as they did with their regular duties. In 1897 Mr. Rand of the Indian Civil Service and Lieutenant Ayerst, who had been engaged on plague-work, were assassinated at Poona. In connexion with the inquiry which followed Superintendent Brewin was summoned from Bombay and placed on special duty in Poona. In the following year occurred the plague-riots, to which reference will be made in a later paragraph. The difficulties which confronted the police during the first two or three years of the plague epidemic were aggravated by the unscrupulous campaign against the Government’s precautionary measures conducted by the native Press, and the expedient then adopted of strengthening the law against seditious publications merely served to intensify popular feeling. It was not till after 1898 that the Indian Government, recognizing the genuineness and sincerity of the public opposition to plague-restrictions, abandoned their more stringent rules in favour of milder methods.