Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-06-18
S
How Robbers Are Punished in the Shah's
Dominions-A Singular Sect.

How Robbers Are Punished in the shah's
Dominions-A Singular Sect.
The dangers of travelling in Persia
are far more real than imaginary, not
withstanding the fact that the Govern
ment takes all the precautions its in
efficient officers can think of to prevent
outragcs upon travellers; even resorting
to abominably cruel punishments.
Some of these appear to be set apart
especially for robbers.
One of my travelling companions told
me that some years ago as he was
passing this place, nearthe frontier, he
saw the skeletons of several robbers
who had been seized and put to death.
A small round tank had been con-
structed, as high as a mans chin. The
condemned man wa then put into the
tank and n%ewly-mixed plaster of Paris
poured in until the tank was full. The
man was thus suffocated, and perma-
nently fixed as q warning to other high
waymen. Sometimes the condemned
one is placed with the head down in
the tank, or in a hole excavated for the
purpose, and the liquid plaster is poured
in until the body is firmly fixed; the
feet and ankles are left to protrude.
Such are some of the Persian
methods ofpunishment. Notwithstand-
ing the severity with which theft and
robbery are punished, yet there are
clans which follow the business. 1t was
related to me at another time that a
chief of one of the Loree clans en-
tered an Armenian village at the head
of several horsemen, at night, being
exasperated at the refusal of the peo-
pie to comply with his demands, and
at the words spoken by some people.
They took the priest, and some of the
principal men of the village, and tied
them one by one in q sack with a large
dog, and then beat the dog until in his
rage he killed the ma tied up with
him. The Persian Government hear
ing of this affair, adopted an e%xpedient
to arrest the guilty parties, by which
he avoided a battle with the clan. He
made a hunting excursion into the ter
ritory of the tribe. Etiquette required
that the chief should visit the Prince.
He was sumptuously entertained in the
pavilion of the Governor, his followers
being without. When his suspicious
had been dispelled, in a moment an
iron band was slipped around his neck
and chains put upon his feet, and he
was thrown alive into one of the fur
naces with which the baths are heated.
The Persians have an exaggerated
fear of night travel. partly from the
bands of robbers who infest the north
ern boundary of the country and partly
from a superstitious inherited dread of
a singular sect of religionists, who like
the Thugs of India, regarded a deed of
murder, under certain circumstances,
| as a religious duty. This sect, known
as Assassins, has been long extinct, but
such dread did their members inspire
by murders, always committed at night,
that all infantile Persia, and not a few
of the grown population, retain an un-
willingness to go out at night for fear
of the Assassins. One of the authors
experiences with his travelling compan-
, ions in the region once infested by the
, Assassins is detailed:
ION the following evening WI
e started with the twilight and the rising
moon, intending to go to Sefr Hojah,
a distance of six farasangs. After VIC
3 had ridden a few miles the road ap.
!, peared to take a course toward the
mountains. The two Persians now be-
. gan to protest against travelling at
, night; they argued that being a strang-
or in the countryI could not appreciate
the dangers of the situation. The
. people Of the country, they said,
were desperate characters, and
the mountains were infested with
l robbers who could easily come
down upon us here, and rob and
kill as they might choose, without any
possible escape for us, or of detection
of the robbers by III friends. They
had evidently heard some legend OF
the bands of Hassans whose rendezvous
was now so e The fortress of Al.
, mood has long since gone to ruin The
!, devastations of six and a half centuries
< since the last of the Assassins have OBJ
T. liberated all traces of the fanatics cx-
cept such as are left in the rocks of the
! mountain peaks and the structures
3 erected upon it. But in the magma
ton of the simple-minded natives the
spirit of the Assassins seem to frequent
their ancient haunts in the shadows OF
! these cliffs. From James BcsseW's
PERSIA" published by Chas. Scrsbner'.
! Sons. .
MONTANA MOSQUITOES.