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 applied on the bare soles of the feet. When an option is left to the prisoner of undergoing the bastinado or paying a fine, he generally selects the sticks, which he feels much less than the anguish of disbursing the smallest sum in cash. Minor crimes only are so punished—it is considered the lightest punishment. Occasionally it is used to obtain confessions. People are seldom known to die under it.
Disfigurement, or deprivation of essential limbs, such as one or more phalanges of fingers, or the ears or nose, is also much in vogue for thieves, house-breakers and highwaymen. For second offences of criminals so branded the whole hand or foot is cut off. Blinding, or rather, atrophizing the eyes by the application of a hot iron in front, but not touching them, such as is common all over Central Asia, is occasionally resorted to in the less civilised parts of Persia, but is not frequent now. I only saw one case of a man who had been so punished, but many are those who have the tendons of arms and legs cut—a favourite punishment which gives the most dreadfully painful appearance to those who have undergone it.
Imprisonment is considered too expensive for the Government, and is generally avoided except in the bigger cities. The prisoners have a very poor time of it, a number of them being chained close together.
To burn people or to bury them alive are severe punishments which are very seldom heard of now-a-days, but which occasionally take place in some remote districts and unknown to his Majesty the Shah, who has ever shown a tender heart and has done all in his power to suppress barbarous ways in his country; but cases or crucifixion and stoning to death have been known to have occurred not many years ago—if not as a direct punishment from officials, yet with their indirect sanction.
Strangling and decapitation are still in use, and I am told—but cannot guarantee its accuracy—that blowing criminals from guns is rarely practised now, although at one time this was a favourite Persian way of disposing of violent criminals.
A Persian official was telling me that, since these terrible punishments have been to a great extent abolished, crimes are more frequent in Persia than they were before. The same man—a very enlightened person, who had travelled in Europe—also remarked to me that had we to-day similar punishments in Europe instead of keeping criminals on the fat of the land—(I am only repeating his words)—we should not have so much crime in the country. "Your laws," he added, "protect criminals; our ways deter men and women from crime. To prevent crime, no matter in how cruel a way it is done, is surely less cruel than to show leniency and kindness to the persons who do commit crimes!"
That was one way of looking at it. Taking things all round, if blood feuds and cases of personal revenge are excepted, there is certainly less crime in Persia than in many European countries.