After the special duty which they were organized to perform had been accomplished The Improvement Trust was made permanent as a useful agency to undertake works of public utility of a similar character which the government could not carry on.  The twelve trustees serve without pay or allowances; not one of them receives a penny of compensation for his time or trouble, or even the reimbursement of incidental expenses made necessary in the performance of his duties.  This is an exhibition of unusual patriotism, but it is considered perfectly natural in Bombay.  To carry out the plans of the Trust, salaried officials are employed, and a large force is necessary.  The trustees have assumed great responsibilities, and supply the place of a board of public works, with larger powers than are usually granted to such officials.  The municipality has turned over to them large tracts of real estate, some of which has been improved with great profit; it has secured funds by borrowing from banks upon the personal credit of its members, and by issuing bonds which sell at a high premium, and the money has been used in the improvement of the city, in the introduction of sanitary reforms, in building model tenements for the poor, in creating institutions of public necessity or advantage and by serving the people in various other ways.

The street car system of Bombay belongs to an American company, having been organized by a Mr. Kittridge, who came over here as consul during President Lincoln’s administration.  Recognizing the advantage of street cars, in 1874 he interested some American capitalists in the enterprise, got a franchise, laid rails on a few of the principal streets and has been running horse cars ever since.

The introduction of electricity and the extension of the street railway system is imperatively needed.  Distances are very great in the foreign section, and during the hot months, from March to November, it is impossible for white men to walk in the sun, so that everybody is compelled to keep or hire a carriage; while on the other hand the density of the population in other sections is so great as to be a continual and increasing public peril.  Bombay has more than 800,000 inhabitants, two-thirds of whom are packed into very narrow limits, and in the native quarters it is estimated that there is one human being to every ten square yards of space.  It will be realized that this is a dangerous condition of affairs for a city that is constantly afflicted with epidemics and in which contagious diseases always prevail.  The extension of the street car service would do something to relieve this congestion and scatter many of the people out among the suburbs, but the Orientals always swarm together and pack themselves away in most uncomfortable and unhealthful limits, and it will always be a great danger when the plagues or the cholera come around.  Multitudes have no homes at all.  They have no property except the one or two strips of dirty cotton which the police require them to wear for clothing.  They lie down to sleep anywhere, in the parks, on the sidewalks, in hallways, and drawing their robes over their faces are utterly indifferent to what happens.  They get their meals at the cook shops for a few farthings, eat when they are hungry, sleep when they are sleepy and go through life without a fixed abode.