Modern Persia Part 8

Persia is divided into thirteen states. The King appoints a governor over each state; this governor appoints a mayor over each city within his territory. This office is not awarded on the basis of education, ability or worthiness, but is given to the man who will pay the most money, provided his ancestry is fairly good. Many mayors of cities are related to the royal family. These offices are limited to terms of one year, but many times a mayor is removed before his time is out; the subjects may complain, or some person may bid more money for the office. When a man is appointed mayor of a city, the lords and counts of that city, accompanied by soldiers, will go three miles out of the city to meet the new official. He is greeted with discharges of artillery. These lords ride on very fine Arabian horses, with goldbitted bridles, and escort the mayor into the city. The new governor of the city admires the fine horses of his lords, and sometimes covets some fine steed, and before his term expires finds a way to get possession of it by helping the lord out of some trouble.

If the new mayor is a prince all prisoners confined in the city jails are taken before him as he enters the city. This is to signify that, as a member of the royal family, he has authority to behead them. The third day after a new mayor has arrived in a city it is customary for lords and counts to visit him with presents of money, golden articles, Arabian horses etc. as presents. A mayor has from one hundred to three hundred servants. He pays them no salary. Some became his servants for the name, some from fear, and others from choice. Most of these servants get their living from fines and bribes. Some of them are detailed to settle quarrels between men in some village that belongs to the city. This is their opportunity and they early learn to make the most of it. The mayor has great power. He is judge, sheriff, tax-collector, etc. He has things his own way. When there is an injustice done there is no other local officer to appeal to.

PRISONS.

The prisons are frequently cellars, underground, without windows, damp and infested with flies. They are seldom ventilated, and there is no bed nor furniture in them. The government does not feed the inmates.

Friends of the imprisoned ones bring bread and throw to them, and some of this even, is sometimes picked up by the jailer and kept for his own nourishment. No men are allowed to visit the prisons, but wives or daughters are allowed to visit their friends if they pay a fee to the jailer. The torture of prisoners is regulated according to the nature of their crimes. The common method of torture for thieves, robbers and murderers is to put the bare foot of the criminal in a vice and squeeze it until he cries in agony. If he gives the jailer some money or promises to give some the next time his friends visit him, the pressure on the foot is lessened. If a man goes to jail wearing good clothes, the jailer often exchanges his own poorer suit for the good clothes.

EXECUTION.

This is done in different ways. A prince from the royal family has authority to behead men. Sometimes when a good friend of the king is appointed governor, the king presents him with a knife. This is a sign and carries with it authority to behead men. Every prince-mayor or other governor who has been given this authority keeps two executioners. The uniform of their office is a suit of red clothes.

These two men walk before the mayor when he goes through the streets.

When a condemned man is to be executed he is brought from the cell, hands chained behind, and with a chain about his neck. He is surrounded by a group of soldiers with fixed bayonets. The guilty man has been in a dungeon for several months perhaps. His clothes are in rags, and, having had no bath since first imprisoned, he is very dirty, his hair and beard are long and s.h.a.ggy. A few steps before him walks the executioner, with blood-red garments and a knife in his hand. Thus they proceed to the public square, and before the a.s.sembled crowd the executioner steps behind the kneeling victim and with a single stroke of the keen knife cuts his throat, and another soul takes its flight, having completed its part in the drama of life.

A common mayor who has not the authority to behead, may kill criminals by fastening them to the mouth of a cannon and sending a ball through the body. Another method is to bury the condemned alive in a cask filled with cement, leaving only the head exposed. The cement soon hardens and the victim dies. Sometimes when their crime is not very bad the punishment is the severing of one hand from the body. If the man thus punished should commit a second crime the remaining hand would be severed. If a Mohammedan becomes drunk with wine and gets loud and abusive, he is arrested, and the executioner punctures the part.i.tion skin between the nostrils of the drunken man, and a cord of twine, several feet long, is pa.s.sed through the opening. Then the executioner starts down the street leading his victim. The man soon gets sober and is very much ashamed. Shopkeepers give the executioner pennies as he pa.s.ses along the street. Men who quarrel and fight are punished by tying their feet to a post, with the bare soles upward, and then whipping the feet until the flesh is bruised and bleeding and, frequently, the nails torn from the toes. The victims frequently become insensible under this punishment. One good thing in the laws of punishment is that no Christians or Jews are ever beheaded. The Mohammedans consider the Christian and Jew as being unclean, and think it would be a mean thing to behead them.

Princes, lords and counts are never beheaded. The most severe punishment for a prince is to pluck out his eyes. The method of execution for counts and lords is of two kinds. The king will send a bottle of Sharbat to the condemned man which is given him in the form of a sweet drink but it contains a deadly poison. He is compelled to drink this and soon dies. Another form is for the condemned man to be met by a servant from the governor after having taken a bath and the servant cuts blood-vessels in the arm of the condemned until death results from loss of blood.

Thus it will be seen that the contrast in modes of punishment in a Christian nation and a Mohammedan nation is very great. The kind of punishment inflicted on criminals in any country grows out of the prevailing religious belief of that country. A religion that has much cruelty in it will lead a people to torture its criminals. But a nation whose religion is based upon love will deal with its criminals effectively, but as kindly as possible. The writer has visited prisons in both Persia and America and finds that the contrast between the prisons of the two countries is like the contrast of a palace and a cellar. Prisoners in America ought to be very thankful for the humane treatment they receive under this Christian government.

CHAPTER III.

COUNTS OR LORDS.

The counts and lords live in luxury. Their t.i.tle was not obtained by great service to the nation or by high education. It descends from ancestors, and many ignorant and unworthy men bear this t.i.tle. Wealthy merchants sometimes purchase a t.i.tle for their sons. The t.i.tled cla.s.s in Persia is very numerous. In one city of 30,000 inhabitants there are more than 500 counts. They own almost all of the land in Persia. In some instances one count owns as much as one hundred villages. All inhabitants of a village are subjects of the count and they pay taxes to him and also to the king. The men pay a poll tax of one dollar a year; a tax is levied on all horses, cows, sheep, and chickens.

The count gets two thirds of all grain raised by the farmers, and he expects a portion of all fruits raised, which portion is called a present. If this 'present' is not large enough to please the count, he has an unfavorable opinion of the subject and soon finds faults in him and withholds favors. All of the count's work is done by his subjects without pay. When he builds a palace or cultivates a vineyard, he calls upon his subjects to do the work. He punishes his subjects if they rebel or are discourteous to him. Sometimes the punishment is so severe that death is the result. The count collects a large sum of money annually from his subjects in the way of fines--some of them for most trivial offences or discourtesies, and these numerous fines keep the subjects very poor.

The counts are the most immoral cla.s.s of people in Persia. They are without education, knowing nothing of the sciences, geography, mathematics or political economy, but most of them can read and write the Persian language and know something of Persian history. It is not much wonder that this leisure cla.s.s becomes immoral, for it is a disgrace for them to do any kind of work, and "Satan finds work for idle hands to do." A count can't keep his own accounts or sell goods in a store. There are no newspapers and magazines circulated throughout Persia to occupy and lead out the thought of the people of leisure hours. No public libraries, and no private libraries except those of a few Persian volumes. The only newspaper published in Persia is an eight page paper published every three weeks. It does not circulate much outside of the capital city. The Presbyterian Mission publishes a monthly paper about Christian work.

When a subject goes before his lord, he finds the lord seated in his private room before a window. The subject bows before approaching near to the window. When the lord is ready to listen, the subject comes to the window. He usually meets with a frown and gets replies to his questions in a gruff voice. As a cla.s.s the counts are not strong physically; they eat and drink too much for their own good.

CHAPTER IV.

CITIES, SCHOOLS AND HOLIDAYS.

The Persian cities generally are very old and most of them are surrounded by walls about six feet through and twenty feet high. The walls are made of clay, tramped solid by buffaloes or by men. The gates giving entrance to the city are opened during the day from eight o'clock in the morning until night. These walls would not withstand a charge from modern cannon, but they were very useful fourteen years ago when parts of the empire were overrun by about 60,000 Kurds, a tribe of wild nomads. They spoiled the villages wherever they went but could not take the walled cities. The streets of cities are generally narrow and crooked, and are not paved. The best houses are brick with stone foundation. Some poor men build homes with sun dried brick and still others make the walls of mud. The roof is flat and made of mud supported by timber. The houses are built adjoining one another, so that men can walk all over the city on the housetops. This is the common way of travel in winter when the streets are muddy. In some of the large cities like the capital, Tehran, and Isphahan and Shiraz modern paving of streets with stone is being introduced.

On each business street a single line of goods is sold. One will be devoted to drygoods, another to groceries, another to carpenter shops, another to iron and silver smiths, etc. The streets are from ten to thirty feet in width, and many of them are arched over with brick, so that rain and snow are shut out. Light is let into these enclosed streets by openings in the top of the arch. Camels, horses and donkeys bearing burdens of various kinds of goods may be seen pa.s.sing through the streets. And in open squares of the city there stand many of these animals belonging to men who have come to the city to buy or sell goods. Before some of the mosques may be seen secretaries or mollahs whose business it is to write doc.u.ments in business transactions for which they get from two to fifteen cents.

In buying goods in Persia a stranger is liable to be cheated. It is a custom among dealers to ask two or three times what an article is worth, expecting to come down with the price before making a sale. The silver smiths do some highly skillful work in making rings for the ears and fingers, and belts for the ladies. In all Persia you cannot find a lady selling goods in a store, except in one street where poor old women and widows are allowed to come for a few hours each day to sell such articles as caps, purses, sacks and soaps. Their faces must be covered except the eyes. Only a few women of the lower cla.s.s are seen in the stores buying goods, and they must not have their faces exposed to view. No Christian can sell fluids such as milk, oil, syrups or juicy fruits like grapes. It is against the Mohammedan law to buy such things from a Christian. If a Christian wishes to buy any such goods from a Mohammedan he must not touch the same, as the merchant could not thereafter sell it to a Mohammedan.

There are many pick-pockets, both male and female in the crowded streets. A stranger must beware.

WEIGHTS.

The standard measure is the miscal, 100 of which equals a pound. Four Persian pounds equal one hapta while it takes five American pounds to equal one hapta. Eight hapta equal one batma. Four batma equal one khancaree. In this measure they weigh raisins, mola.s.ses, and tobacco.

Ten batma equal one load. In this they weigh green wheat, corn, etc.

Twenty-five batma equal kharwar. In this they weigh fuel.

The money is of copper and silver and a very little gold. The following table shows the values of Persian coins:

25 denars = 1/2 cent 50 denars = 1 cent 100 denars = 2 cent 500 denars = 10 cent 1,000 denars = 20 cent 10,000 denars = 100 dollar

The bankers sit on small rugs before the shops with boxes of money in their laps. Their chief business through the day is to change money.

For changing 20 cents into copper, they charge one cent, and the fee increases in proportion to the amount of the bill changed. Interest in Persia, especially among Mohammedans, is very high, being from 12 to 15 per cent. per annum. But the synod of the Presbyterian Evangelical Church has a law which forbids any of their members charging more than 10 or 11 per cent.

There are no gas or electric lights in the streets of a Persian city.

The mayor appoints an officer, who has a number of a.s.sistants, to watch over the city day and night. Every day of the year is given a name by the mayor; as, lion, eagle, Cyrus, fortune, etc. This word is known only to the officials and such persons as may have been given permission to be out at a late hour. If an officer finds a man on the street after 9 o'clock he calls to him to give the name of the night.

If he can't do this he is arrested. One of the worst things in a Persian city is the large graveyards, which contain two to five acres of ground. Mohammedans dig up the remains of a dead relative to carry it to a shrine place, and these removals often fill the city with bad odors. These graveyards make excellent hiding places for robbers and thieves. There are many robbers outside of the city walls, and it is very dangerous to go out after night, even a distance of one mile.

Victims are usually shot while at a distance, or stabbed and then plundered.

The hammams or bath-places are quite numerous in the cities. They are usually well-built, brick buildings and have within two or three pools of water, some hot, others cold. Men can bathe any day in the week except Friday, which day is reserved for women. The charge is three or four cents. Christians cannot enter a Mohammedan hammam, as they are considered unclean.

HOLIDAYS.

The Mohammedans have several holidays. Neither the government nor the priesthood compel observance of these days, but they are usually observed either for the sake of rest, religious profit or amus.e.m.e.nt.

There is, however, one set of holidays, ten days known as Moharram, that is strictly observed by all faithful Mohammedans. There is also one national holiday generally observed in memory of the beginning of the Persian nation. It is called Newrooz, meaning new day. This name was given by a Persian king in ancient times. Two weeks before this day all stores will be decorated with different kinds of fruits, such as palms, figs, pomegranates, apples, almonds, and raisins. Also some fine shawls and rugs are hung before the stores. During these two weeks most people buy of these fruits and prepare for the national feast. On that day nearly every man, woman and child puts on some new garments of clothing and new clothes throughout if possible. People also clean their houses for this occasion. On the evening of Newrooz a table is spread with the finest fruits and the family will gather around and feast until a late hour in the night. The poor are remembered on these occasions and presents of fruit are sent to them. Christians are also frequently remembered in this way.

SCHOOLS.

There is no system of public or state schools in Persia. There are schools in all large towns and cities which are taught by the priest in a room of the mosque. These schools are voluntary, no person being obliged to send his children. The students pay the priest each from 5 to 25 cents per month. Those who can't pay anything are admitted free.

The priest's food is brought to him by the students. The ages of the pupils range from ten to twenty years. These schools are for boys only.

There are no schools for girls. If a girl gets any education at all, it must be from a private tutor. In the schools the textbooks in history and poetry are in the Persian language and Koran and grammar are taught in the Arabic language. Mathematics, geography, the sciences and the history of other nations are never taught. When the pupils are at study they reel back and forth and repeat words loud enough to be heard a block away. They imagine this is an aid to memory. The teacher has authority to punish the students very severely. Sometimes a parent will take his child to a teacher and will deliver him into the gentle keeping of the professor with the remark: "His bones are mine, but his flesh is yours. Teach him, but punish him as you see fit." A post is planted in the schoolroom to which a wild boy's feet are fastened, soles upward, and the bottoms are whipped with heavy switches. This punishment is only for the worst boys. For mild offences, the teacher raps the student over the head with a long switch which is always kept in a convenient place or carried in the teacher's hand. The religious teaching consists of quotations from Koran and traditions about their prophets. The boys are usually very bad about reviling each other and about fighting. The teacher does not protect the weaker, but urges him to return the revilings or the blows he has received. The students of one mosque often attack the students of a neighboring mosque as they regard them as enemies. The most prominent university of the Shiite Mohammedans is in the shrine place of Karballa. All those who are to become Mujtahids study at this place. In several of the large cities they have schools of higher rank than the ordinary mosque school in which a course of Persian literature is given. It is a pleasure to state that the late Shah, after his visit to some of the universities of Europe, founded a college in the capital city which is called the Place of Science. The French, English and Russian languages are taught, and the study of some modern sciences are being introduced. The college is only for princes and the children of rich people. It is only one flower in a vast wilderness. The problem of Mohammedanism is to keep the common people ignorant, so the priest can continue to rule them.

Therefore the priesthood does not favor higher education. Some counts or lords send their sons to Paris to be educated, but the ordinary young men have no opportunities for education.

PART IV.