imbs, and
other such trifling punishments are inflicted if sufficient money is not
forthcoming from the accused or their relations to buy them out.

Here is an example of Persian justice. While I was in bed with fever, one
day Major and Mrs. Benn went for a ride along the wall of the city, with
their usual escort. On reaching the city gate they saw several people
come out, and they were startled by a shot being fired close by them, and
a dead body was laid flat across the road. The dead man, it appeared, had
been himself a murderer and had been kept in chains in the Amir's
custody, pending trial. The verdict might have possibly turned in his
favour had he been willing to grease the palms of the jailors, in
accordance with old Persian custom; but although the man was very well
off, he refused to disburse a single shai. He was therefore there and
then handed over to the relations of the murdered man so that they should
mete out to him what punishment they thought fit.

The man was instantly dragged through the streets of the city, and on
arriving outside the city gate they shot him in the back. The body was
then left in the road, the Persian crowd which had assembled round
looking upon the occurrence as a great joke, and informing Major Benn
that the corpse would remain there until some of his relations came to
fetch it away. On referring the matter to the Governor the following day,
he smilingly exclaimed: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!"--a
quotation from the Koran that quite cleared his conscience.

This is a very common way of disposing of criminals in Persia by allowing
personal revenge to take its course. Although such ways of administering
justice may not commend themselves to one, the moral of it as looked upon
by Persian eyes is not as bad as it might at first appear. The honest,
the well-to-do man, they reason, has nothing whatever to fear from
anybody, and if a man chooses to be a criminal, he must take the
consequences of it. The more severe the punishment the less crime there
will be in the country. Persian law prevents crime.

In a province like Sistan, where the people are not quite up-to-date as
in other parts of Persia, naturally, ways which to us may seem very
cruel have to be applied by the Amir to impress the people. If fines to
the maximum of the prisoner's purse are excepted, the usual way of
satisfying the law for almost any offence, the next most common
punishment is the bastinado appli