'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎465] (524/714)

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INSTITUTIONS AND REFORMS
engine to others, to whom speed has hitherto been unknown.
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Nor
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must the sower expect an immediate harvest from all his seed
Among the reforms successfully introduced by the present Shah
I have already noticed m other contexts, the institution of a city
Petition- police m Teheran, and the reconstruction and embellish-
oxes t of tl capital itself . Among t]ioge unsuccesgfull
attempted, I have drawn attention to administrative reorgani
sation, the institution of judicial tribunals, and the codification
of the law. To the latter class also belongs an amiable but
ephemeral device that was one of the results of the first European
journey of the Shah. Aware that much injustice existed which
never reached his ears, and acting in unconscious imitation of
the old \ enetian practice, when petitions to the Council of Ten
were placed in the mouth of a stone lion, he ordered petition-boxes
to be exposed once a month in the public place of the larger towns
The keys were kept in his custody, and the boxes were to be
opened m his presence. But the Persian provincial governor was
not to be got the better of by so transparent a machinery He
promptly ordered a watch to be kept on the boxes; and the basti
nado was freely administered to any indiscreet person dropping in
a petition. Wherefore the petition-boxes remained permanentlv
empty, and the Shah felicitated himself upon the singular content
ment of his subjects.
The reforms to which I now turn belong to a class that is not
associated m the Western imagination with any very advanced
diapter of f ^ ^ national P ro g ress > but that marks a considerable
forward move m a country such as the Persia of Malcolm
of Morier, and of Ouseley. They will include the institution of a
letter-post, of the electric telegraph, of newspapers, of a govern
ment mint and a new currency, of European banks, of commercial
and other concessions, of manufactured roads, and of higher educa
tion. The opportunity will also present itself of saying something
about the state of religious feeling in the country. " Eailroads will
be reserved for a separate chapter.
Down to the year 1874 the postal system of Persia 1 was in
the hands of the chaparchi-hashis, or masters of the post -houses, who
. ' F ° r inform ation upon this subject, vide articles by J. E. Polak in OesUr
mS ^fZ a Ti rmf ^t en im ' PP - 186-8 5 byG - ^ e derer in ibid.
I ' PP - 7-22 5 by Herr von G6del L< ' irmo y in ibid. 1881, pp. 176 -9; and by Andreas
and Stolze m Petermann's Mitthe'dungen, 1885, pp. 30-2.
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