PERIER, ADGUSTE 0. V. L. 



PERSIA. 



659 



PERIER, AUGUSTS CASIMIB VICTOR LAU- 

 BENT, a French statesman, burn at Paris, Au- 

 gust 20. 1811 ; died July 6, 1876. He was the 

 oM,-st son of the celebrated minister of state, 

 who died in 1832. At twenty years of age he 

 entered the diplomatic career, and was suc- 

 cessively secretary of legation at London, 

 Brussels, and at the Hague, was charge d'af- 

 faires at Naples and St. Petersburg, and min- 

 ister plenipotentiary in Hanover. In 1846 he 

 was elected to the Second Chamber, and at 

 the Revolution of 1848 he retired to his private 

 estates. In 1849 he was returned from tho 

 department of Aube to the Legislative As- 

 sembly, where he voted with the party in 

 power, and was made a member of the perma- 

 nent commission which was intrusted with 

 the revision of the Constitution, and sustained 

 the policy of the Elysee up to the formation of 

 the ministry which preceded the coup-d'etat, 

 against which he protested. Brought on De- 

 cember 2d to Mont Valerien, he was detained 

 but a few days, and then returned to private 

 life. From 1845 to 1851 he was a member of 

 the Council-General of Aube, and was re- 

 elected in 1861. In 1869 he was a -candidate 

 for the Corps Legislatif, but was defeated. In 

 1846 he was created grand officer of the Legion 

 of Honor, and in 1867 was elected a member 

 of the Academy of Moral and Political Sci- 

 ences. When Thiers became President of the 

 Republic in 1871, he appointed P6rier Minister 

 of the Interior on October 12. His brief stay 

 in the Home-Office was marked by a mixture 

 of rigor and conciliation. He was popular 

 with his prefects, and retired from his position 

 because of l>ick of harmony between him and 

 M. Thiers on financial questions. He resigned 

 on February 5, 1872, was again appointed on 

 May 17, 1873, but went out with the entire 

 Tlilcrs government a week afterward. He was 

 the author of "Le Trait6 avec Angleterre " 

 (1860), "Les Finances de TErapire" (1861), 

 "Le Budget de 1863" (1862), "La Reforme 

 Financiere " (1862), " Les Finances et la Poli- 

 tiqne " (1863), " Les Societes de Cooperation " 

 (1864), and "L' Article 75 de la Constitution 

 de 1'An VIII sous le Regime de la Constitu- 

 tion de 1852" (1867). 



PERKINS, GEORGE ROBERTS, died at New 

 Hartford, Conn., August 22, 1876. He was 

 born in Otsego County, N. Y., in 1812. He was 

 self-educated, and at the age of eighteen was 

 employed in the Slackwater Survey of the Sus- 

 quehanna River. He was a teacher of mathe- 

 matics in the Liberal Institute at Clinton. N. 

 Y., from 1831 to 1838, when he bocame Prin- 

 cipal of the Utica Academy. In 1844, at the 

 opening of the State Normal School, he was 

 chosen Professor of Mathematics, and four years 

 later was elected principal. In 1852 he resigned 

 and superintended the erection of the Dudley 

 Observatory. He published a series of arith- 

 metics (1840-'51); "Treatise on Algebra" 

 (1841) ; " Elements of Algebra " (1844) ; El- 

 ements of Geometry " (1847) ; " Trigonome- 



try and Surveying " (1851) ; and " Plane and 

 Solid Geometry " (1854). 



PER RONE, GIOVANNI, an Italian priest, 

 born in 1794; died August 28, 1876. He 

 studied theology in Turin, then went to Rome, 

 and there entered the Society of Jesus in his 

 twenty-first year. After his ordination he 

 taught for some time in the Collegium Ro- 

 maiium, became rector of the College of Fer- 

 rara in 1839. returned after some time to the 

 Collegium Romanum, went to England at the 

 time of the Revolution of 1848, and in 1850 

 was appointed rector of the entire Collegium 

 Romanum. He was the author of "Pnelec- 

 tiones Theologicaa " (9 vols., 1835), which has 

 gone through more than thirty editions; " Prae- 

 lectiones Theologicse," abridged from the above 

 (4 vols., 1845 ; thirty-first edition, 1864) ; " Sy- 

 nopsis Histories Theologies cum Philosophia com- 

 paratae " (1845) ; " De Immaculate B. V. Mariaa 

 Conceptu, an Dogmatico Deere to definiri pos- 

 sit " ( 1 847 ; reedited several times, and translated 

 into French, Dutch, and German) ; " II Her- 

 mesianismo" (1838) ; "De Divinate D. N. Jesu 

 Christi " (1869), etc. He was considered one 

 of the most learned Italian theologians of the 

 nineteenth century. 



PERSIA,* a country of Asia. Reigning 

 sovereign, Nasr-ed-Din, Shah of Persia, born 

 1830, succeeded his father, Shah Mohammed, 

 September 10, 1848. Heir-apparent, Muzaffer- 

 ed-Din, born in 1850. The area of Persia is 

 estimated at 636,000 square miles. The popu- 

 lation, which for some time had been on the 

 decline, is now reliably reported as again in- 

 creasing, and amounting to from 6,000,000 to 

 7,000,000. 



The ministry formerly consisted of only two 

 functionaries, the Vizier-i-Azem, or grand-viz- 

 ier, and the Ameen-ed-Dotilah, or lord-treas- 

 urer; but in more recent times it has been 

 divided into a larger number of departments, 

 after the European fashion. In 1876 it con- 

 sisted of the following members : Hussein- 

 Khan, formerly grand-vizier, Minister of For- 

 eign Affairs and War and Commander-in-chief 

 of the Army ; Mirza Yussuf Khan, Minister of 

 the Interior and of Finances; General Ali Kuli 

 Khan, Minister of Telegraphs ; Mirza Ali Khan, 

 Minister of Posts; Mohammed Rahim Khan, 

 Minister of the Royal House ; Ali Riza Khan, 

 Minister of Justice; Hassan Ali Khan, Minister 

 of Public Works; Mirza Abdul Wahab Wahab- 

 Khan, Minister of Commerce. 



The Persian army, according to official re- 

 turns of the Minister of War, numbers about 

 105,000, of whom one-third, or 30,000 men, 

 constitute the standing army. According to a 

 new law issued in 1875, the soldiers will no 

 longer serve, as heretofore, for lifetime, but 

 only for twelve years, and the right of provid- 

 ing substitutes is granted. 



The aggregate length of the electric telegraph 



* For an account of the rellifioiig statistics, the political 

 divisions, and the imports and exports, tee ANSUJLL CYCLO- 

 for 1S74. 



