The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-02-07
PERSIAN woMEN's COURAGE.
Become Rulers of the Harem When They are Aroused.

London Letter in New York Sun.
 The life of yelled seclusion led by Per. sian women of the upper classes would hardly be thought calculated to foster in them a spirit of independence so strong and courageous that on occasion rulers and Governors must bow before them in matters political. economic and social. Yet MT. Wilfred Sparroy, writing with knowledge of things Persian, declares that such is often the case, If you en- croach on their sovereign rights as moth- CTS or sisters or wives" Three exam ples which he gives will serve to illus trate the point
 A provincial Governor makes a corner in wheat and barley. forbidding his sub jects to import grain from any market whatsoever outside his jurisdiction. Their daily bread goes up to famine price m time, and the women. seeing their chill dren in danger of starvation. rise up in arms at once. They jump into their trousers, they slip on their wells, they make raid on the Governor 8 palace. They batter at his gates: the gat WR re flung open and the women rusn in. They take the diVan khane by storm; they shriek, they wall, they threaten, they plead they defy, they swear by their mothers lives that they will have cheap bread to live on, and in ninety nina cases out Of hundred they win the day. The strongest Governor, if the women folk make common cause against his oppression, must mend his ways.
 The Tobacco Concessions.
 Again, it sometimes happens that the innate sense of justice in women ex- presses itself in the opposition they make to any inquisitorial interference on the part of licensed concessionaries with the habits and practices of their daily life--an opposition wn.ch ClaShed on one occasion with the succt ss of a British enterprise. as Nasirin'd Din Shah. the ablest Persian sovereign ot the nine teenth ce ltury. learned to his cost from the disturbances arising out of the to- bacco concessions In 1891. In the autumn of the preceding year d complete monop- oly of the purchase. sale and manufac- ture. of native grown tobacco was grant ed by the Shah and an English company, entitled the Imperial Tobacco Corpora tion of Persia, was formed to work IL.
 The concession was to hold good for a period of nifty years. So wholesale hartering of a staple product. regarded in Persia as a necessary of life, excited the fiercest opposition among the people. who took further alarm at the company exercising the right of search in too reckless a fashion. The suggestion that the privacy of their homes was in dan ger of being violated by the unclean Firangi sufficed to kindle the vitality of the race, and the whole country headeo bv the women and the priests, went on strike.
 Mirza Hassan, the high priest of the sacred city of Kerbela, declared tobacco to be unlawful of the true follower of the Prophet, and every man, woman and child was forbidden to smoke or sell 1t, The priestly prohibition was oheNed; the women ever to the fore in upholding the rights of the people to develop the re- sources of the country themselves, re- f,,sed to allow thier husbands to smoke In inc harems; raids were made on sus- pected tea shops by vigilance men, who smashed every waterpipe they could lay their hands on; ministers of the crown were coerced by their wives to forswear the soothing weed; men and women took their walks abroad wearing the sullen and Irritable look habitual to smokers who give up the habit too suddenly.
 Even the Shah himself had no other choice than to smoke on the sly like schoolboy, so overwhelming was the whim of the ladies of the harem! The result of the strike. probably the most remarkable on record, was that the Shah, in January, 1892 weary of governing nation of non-smokers. yielded to the popular demonstration hY cancelling the entire concession. promising pecuniary compcnsatfon for +he rupture of con- trarts-a promise which was faithfully fulfilled. Then the Gurgling of the hub ble-buhhle was heard once more in the land and the national face took on its wontnd expression of Oriental serenity. The honors of this victory belong to the Rentlcr sex. for tac priests could nav" achieved next to nothing without 'hs!f whole hearted cooperation.
 and the minute he meets it he has hurry