The Cairo bulletin., 1911-02-21

Officials 11y For the Privilege Of
Fleeing the Fu1Iic.
A LAND WITT UT LAWYERS.
And Yet That Extraordinary Exemp-
ton Dous No. Hep the Unfortunate
Who Gets Into Troa5lc--Coaxing the
Accused 10 Confess.

Accused 10 Confess.
1t would be diff ut for Persian
who has not trave.nl TO understand
American excitement, over what the
newspapers here call graft My
notherand, Persia. Is Lot yet quite
awake to the possibility If mans
serving the public for certain fixed
salary and taking nothing y re. In
Persia they take it for gran u that
every otiiceholder will gouge' people
wherever he gets chance.
There Gre no lawyers in Persia. so
taere are no jokes about lawyers ap-
petite for gold and silver If you hive
ever had 4 costly lawsuit on J r
hands yon may think that makes II Z
tiers slmp.ec. but getting into trout
means being squeezed Cor none.
wgun% for money. as II yen were
lierc Of wet cloth In q washerwoman 8
stro3g grip.
THIS IL how It Is managed First.
you see. the governor OF city or of a
|
from the state not ut all. On the con
traTy, he pays the state treasury sew
erGl thousand dollars more or loss for
the privilege Of being governor and of
making what he can ont Of the enter
Irse. He IL net Gn elected officer; he
is more like Il "concessionare" ct one
Of your big expositions, WHO offers n
large sum for chance to run res-
taurant or to provide ice cream soda or
candy.
The governor tor mayor OF n large
Persian town may have perhaps 100 to
100 employees under him. OF Theses
only n few house servants Cook.
ccachman and the likel have fixed
wages The incomes of the others de-
rend 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
neighhors are fond of them!
Suppose now You live in Persia. You
have leased a piece of ground or you
have sold some goods and the other
man Goes not pay. You dun him.
Then you threaten him. Then you SO
To the governor and make complaint.
An officer arrests your debtor and
takes him before the governors sec
rotary for examination. Possibly he
can convince that important parsonage
that 1t Ia not just debt If he can.
not do that he would better put all his
wits to work to convince the secretary
that poverty makes II quite impossl-
bic to pay up.
This Is where many of tho 40 under
employees get their chance. a large
Part of their occupation is hunting UP
facts about everybody's property,
eyerybody'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 lAsorma-
ton IS wanted.
Your mans pretense that business ~
bad and that he IL all but bankrupt IL
brushed aside. ana he is made to pro-
duce an amount of money consider
ably larger than the original debt.
"Madcy to produce it? Yes. There
are shocking things that can be done
knows it, So. like cllild aware that
there IL an ugly StiCk waiting In tho
corner, he usually does not hesitate
too long. He saves his skin and hand;
over the money. You get maybe 81
to 90 per cent 10 satisfy your claim
that is, the officer Of iustioe practi'
cally collects from you something for
his own services The rest goes to the
governor and such OF tie employees
as may be considered In the case.
Perhaps you have II shop in the town
bazaar or market place and some poor
Eood-for-nothing steals a chicken that
was hanging on the wall. If Il woman
was the thief she is most likely fined
possibly whipped If she his no Eioncy
to pay fine. If the culprit Is man
they punch a hole through the car.
tilage Of the lower end of his nose. put
n cord through the hole ard lead him
in this painful disgrace all around tho
bazaar. The officer collects as he goes
along a few cents from this shopkeep.
er and few cents from that me as
an acknowledgement of the officers
service in publicly exposing n thief
Naturally 1t often happens that some
outrageous robbery occurs or some
body is brutally murdered ard, the
guilty one Is unknown Then the gov
ernors detective agents set to work.
Anybody may be arrested on suspicion
and examined either as the probable
offender or as witness. If tho sus-
pect has plenty Of money he can al
ways prove his innocence or his i~no-
rance by paying cash to the examining
officers. though, since there is no regu.
lated tariff In such matters the pro.
ceeding may be quite expensive.
IL the suspect Is too poor to make
things right with the examiners or too
stubborn to tell what he knows anil
sometimes, am afraid, IL he really
does not know anything to tell-they
have some third degree" methods
warranted to make n man say some
thing. One such method Is what they
call the "bastinado." 1t IS whipping
the soles Of the bare feet with slen-
der rods. Often live Goals from pipe
are put on the shaver head of pris-
oner to make him confess. Sometimes
- But no. Probably you would not
care to hear any more along this par
ticular line. Persian inventions In this