660 



PERSIA. 



lines in 1876 was 3,966 kilometres ; that of the 

 wires, 7,646 kilometres. The number of offices 

 was 46. 



Eeports from Persia agree in representing 

 that the Shah was strongly impressed by the 

 views of Western civilization which he gained 

 during his travels in Europe, and has been 

 actuated, since his return home, by a desire to 

 secure the enjoyment of some of its benefits 

 for his country. For this purpose, he has at- 

 tempted to introduce several measures of re- 

 form ; but, partly because of his own want of 

 experience, as well as of his lack of compre- 

 hension of the true nature of the measures of 

 reform that are needed partly on account of 

 the unsettled and impoverished condition of 

 the country and the deficiency of means of 

 communication in greater part on account of 

 the impossibility of enforcing any considerable 



COURT OF THE GRAND MOSQUE, ISPAHAN. 



degree of accountability upon the local officers, 

 his efforts have so far met with but little suc- 

 cess. The "justice-boxes " which were ordered 

 to be placed in all the towns for the reception 

 of complaints, and which were to be sent with 

 their contents monthly to the capital (see AN- 

 JNUAL CYCLOPAEDIA for 1875), were at first reg- 



governor, Bekil-el-Mulik, was allowed to pay 

 from his own private funds. As he is the 

 richest landowner in the province, it is sup- 

 posed that he will, in the end, find measures to 

 recover at least double this amount from his 

 tenants. A petition was sent to the Shah from 

 Bushire, asking relief from the excessive tax 

 on grain. The Shah replied by telegraph ; but 

 the director of the telegraph, who was in the 

 interest of the collector of taxes, refused to 

 deliver the dispatch, except for a granting of 

 200 tomans ; and the people were not permitted 

 to forward any new complaint by telegraph. 



In February the Shah appointed a State 

 Council of 25 members, to consult concerning 

 reforms and adopt measures for introducing 

 them. The subjects of coining ^money and the 

 establishment of a postal system were espe- 

 cially confided to them. The new council 

 seems to have performed 

 its functions in a satis- 

 factory manner, till the 

 news reached Persia of 

 the deposition of the 

 Sultan Abdul - Aziz of 

 Turkey by a council of 

 ministers, and his sub- 

 sequent suicide. The 

 fact that the downfall 

 of the Sultan had been 

 brought about by a 

 council such as he had 

 only recently establish- 

 ed gave the Shah much 

 anxiety, and induced 

 him to adopt precau- 

 tions lest a similar fate 

 should befall himself 

 from his council. He 

 ordered that the council 

 should do its business 

 by committees of four 

 members each, of which 



only one committee should sit at a time, 

 and that these should go out by rotation, 

 monthly. Afterward he adjourned the meet- 

 ings of the councils for six months, or, as an- 

 other account has it, ordered that a full meet- 

 ing of the council should be held only twice 

 a year, and that the body should sit only in 



ularly well filled ; but the local officers, for the presence of the Shah. Provision has been 



whose interest it was that complaints should 

 not reach the court, stationed spies near the 

 boxes, who drove away all who would deposit 

 complaints in them, and thus defeated the object 

 of this effort. The full amounts of the taxes 

 are rigorously collected, whatever may be the 

 circumstances of the people. In the province 

 of Ghilan, where the silk crop had partially 



made for the coinage of Persian money with 

 an apparatus which has been bought in Paris. 

 A beginning has been made of the establish- 

 ment of a postal system. The department has 

 been organized under the superintendence of 

 an Austrian postal officer, Herr Niedercr. The 

 first route was opened on the 12th of February, 

 from Teheran to Tauris, in the northwestern 



failed for two years in succession, the same part of the kingdom, and thence to the Rus- 



amount of impost was demanded as in more 

 prosperous years, and the petitions of the in- 

 habitants for relief received no answer. In 

 the province of Kerman a deficiency of 20,000 

 tomans was shown in the revenues, resulting 

 from the shortness of the crops, which the 



sian boundaries at Djoulfa and Resht Enzeli. 

 The service is performed by six couriers, who 

 make the journey of 94 farsachs, or 80 Austrian 

 miles, and back, in eighty hours. Provisions 

 have been made in connection with the postal 

 route for the negotiation of bills of exchange 



