The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1911-04-28

/. And Yet That Extraordinary Exemp-
tion Does Not Help the unfortunate
Who Gets Into Trouble coaxing The
Asou5ed to Confess.
It would be difacult for Persian
who has not travelled to understand
American excitement over what the
newspapers here call graft" NY
motherland, Persia, is not yet quite
awake to the possibility Of a mans
serving the public for certain fixed
salary and taking nothing more. In
Persia they take 1t for granted that
every ofilceholder viii 'gouge' people
whenever he gets chance.
There are no lawyers In Persia, so
there are no jokes about lawyers APP
petite for gold and silver. If you have
ever had costly lawsuit on your
hands you may think that makes mat
tiers simpler, but getting into trouble
means being squeezed for money,
wrung for money, as IL you were a
piece of wet cloth In washerwoman's
strong grip.
This Is how it is managed: First,
you see, the governor Of q city or Of q
province never has a definite salary
from the state not at 81. On the con-
trady, he pays the state treasury sew
eral thousand dollars more or less for
the privilege Of being governor and Of
making what he can out Of the enter
prise. He is not an elected officer; he
Is more like "concessionaire'' at one
Of your big expositions, who offers a
large sum for chance to run res
taurant or to provide Ice cream soda or
candy.
The governor Tor mayor OF a large
Persian town may have perhaps 100 to
100 employees under him. or these
only few house servants (cook,
coachman and the like have fixed
wages. The incomes Of the others de-
pend upon the amount Of money which
they can help turn into the great
mans hands in the form Of fines and
taxes. You can guess whether the
neighbors are fond OF them!
Suppose now you live In Persia. You
have leased piece Of ground or you
hive sold some goods and the other
man does not pay. You dun him,
Then you threaten him. Then you go
to the governor and make a complaint.
An officer arrests your debtor and
takes him before the governors sec
rotary for examination. Possibly he
can convince that important parsonage
that It is not q just debt. IF he cam
not do that he would better put all his
wits to work to convince the secretary
that poverty makes it quite impossi-
BILE to pay up.
This Is where many Of the i5O under
employees get their chance. A large
part Of their occupation is hunting up
facts about everybody's property,
everybody's business, everybody's in
come. They know an amazing num-
Der Of things which your debtor sup
posed were safely secret. They pro-
duce information whenever informa-
ton is wanted.
Your mans pretense that business Is
bad and that he is all but bankrupt is
brushed aside, and he is made to pro-
duce an amount Of money consider
ably larger than the original debt.
Made to produce it? Yes. There
are shocking things that can be done.
to him if he hesitates too long, and he
knows it. So, like child aware that
there is an ugly stick waiting in the
corner, he usually does not hesitate
too long. He saves his skin and hands
over the money. You get maybe 80
to 80 per cent to satisfy your claim
that is, the officer Of Justice practi-
lly collects from You something for
3 own services. The rest goes to the
26vernor and such Of the employees
as may be considered In the case.
Perhaps you have shop in the town
bazaar Of market place and some poor
good nothing steals chicken that
was hanging on the wall II a woman
was theNthief she is most likely fined
possibly whipped if she has no money