The reiterated complaints of successive Commissioners had impressed upon the Bombay Government the need for the proper housing of the force. But their wishes were dependent upon the state of the provincial exchequer, which after several years of plague and a series of disastrous famines was quite unable to provide money for police-accommodation schemes. A solution of the difficulty was, however, secured by the passing of Act IV of 1898 (City Improvement Trust Act), under the provisions of which the newly-constituted Trust could be called upon by the Government to build quarters and barracks for the police in various parts of the Island. By 1901 the Government had already formulated their first demands, and the engineers of the Trust were preparing plans and schemes for police stations, quarters and lines, in Colaba, Princess Street (a new street-scheme of the Trust), Nagpada and Agripada and in other crowded localities. These buildings took many years to complete, and some of them in the northern suburbs had not been commenced in 1916. But the first step towards a comprehensive solution of the grave problem of police-accommodation was taken during Mr. Kennedy’s _régime_, when the City Improvement Trust assumed the task which the Government with the best will in the world, found themselves quite unable to fulfil. Though his period of office was not long, Mr. Kennedy left his mark upon the police administration, and there are persons still alive who remember the energy and activity with which he tackled some of the evils of urban life. He was a sworn foe of gambling in any form, and had barely gripped the reins of office ere he commenced an offensive against the bagatelle-players, the cardsharpers and the dice-gamblers of the lower quarters. The divisional police learned to their cost that it did not pay to wink at gaming, and that the Commissioner, working through private agents of his own, possessed an uncomfortably accurate knowledge of what was going on in various quarters of the city. The performances of one of his chief informers are still within the recollection of the oldest members of the force and of some of the superannuated gamblers of the old B. and C. divisions. The immediate result of Mr. Kennedy’s action was a large increase of cases under the Gambling Act, sixty prosecutions being launched in the year 1900 alone. The effect of these prosecutions, however, was minimised by the Magistrates’ practice of imposing merely a fine on conviction. Such fines acted as very little deterrent to men who dealt week by week with comparatively large sums of money. In the case of the most inveterate gamblers a short term of imprisonment would probably have had a more salutary effect.