Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1911-02-25
CRAFT IN PERSIA.
Officials Pay For the Privilege Of
Fleeing the Public.
A LAND WITHOUT LAWYERS,
And Vet That Extraordinary Exsmp.
ton Does Not Help the Unfortunate
Who Gets Into 1roubIs-coaxine the
Accused to Confess.

ton Does Not Help the Unfortunat
Who Gets Into TroubIs-Coaxina tn
Accused to Confess.
1t would be difficult for q Persian
who has not Travelled to understand
American excitement over what tn,
newspapers here call graft" My
motherland, Persia, is not yet quit,
awake to the possibility of a man,
serving the public for a certain fixet
salary and taking nothing more. II
Persia they take it for granted thai
every officeholder will "gouge'' people
whenever he gets chance.
There are no lawyers in Persia, &C
there are no jokes about lawyers ap
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 If you were q
piece of wet cloth in washerwoman's
strong grip.
This is how 1t is managed: First,
you see, the governor Of a city or of a
province never has q definite salary
from the state-not ut all. On the con-
trary, 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 a "concessionaire" at one
Of your big expositions, who offers a
large sum for chance to run a 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. OF these
only few house servants (cook,
/, goodman 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
have sold some goods and the other
man does not pay. You dun him,
Then you threaten him. Then you 60
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
hot 10 4,1cf ~
not do that he would better put all bis
wits to work to convince the secretary
that poverty makes It quite impossi-
BILE to pay up.
This is where many of the $50 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 Ia
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 50
to 80 per cent to satisfy your claim
that is, the officer Of Justice practi.
cally collects from you something for
his own services. The rest goes to the
governor and such of the employees
% may be considered in the case.
Perhaps you have a shop in the town
bazaar or market place and some poor
good. nothing steals a chicken that
was hanging on the wall. If woman
was the thief she is most likely fined
possibly whipped II she has no money
to pay a fine. If the culprit is q man
they punch q hole through the car
tilage of the lower end Of his nose. put
q cord through tho hole and lead him
I'm this painful disgrace all around the
bazaar. The oncer collects AZ he goes
along a few cents from this shopkeep.
er and a few cents from that one as
IN acknowledgment of the ofncers
service In publicly exposing q thief
Naturally it often happens that some
outrageous robbery occurs or some
body is brutally murdered, and the
guilty one IL unknown. Then the gov
ernor's detective agents set to work.
Anybody may be arrested on suspicion
and examined either as the probable
offender or a. a witness. If the sus-
pect has plenty Of money he can al
ways prove his innocence or his igno-
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.
If the suspect Is too poor to make
things right with the examiners or too
stubborn to tell what he knows-and
sometimes, am afraid, If he really
does not know anything to tell-they
have some third degree methods