PERSIAN MODE OF COLLECTING DEBTS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3051, 6 April 1881, Page 4

PERSIAN MODE OF COLLECTING DEBTS.

The Persian creditor having once determined to get his money, calls for it early in the morning, and cannot be persuaded to go away till it is paid. He brings his carpets with him and sits down in his debtor's bedroom, eating, drinking, sleeping, and smoking there till he is bought oil. Some years ago —not v--ny —a Persian had, or fancied that he hi/1, a claim on the English Foreign Office. Zo one day he travelled away from Teheran, and after many strange adventures, arrived in London taking his carpet with him, and fully prepared to sit upon the Foreign Office, which _c supposed to be a person, till he was satisfied. Lord Palmerston was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at that time, and took the thing good-humouredly ; but Mr Hammond, the Under-Secretary of State, a sharp-tempered gentleman, was for calling a policeman. The practice of " sitting upon a man, " as it is called, universally prevails in Persia, and it is not easy to deal with it. Still, it may be dealt with, and Sir John M'Neil, a shrewd old Jcotch diplomatist, who was once accredited to the Persian Court, contrived to get rid of a Persian who had tried to sit upon him by a rather clever device. At the New Year, which is kept as a festival in Persia, religious medicants go about, not so much asking for arms as insisting upon a fixed sum. They generally ax a foreign ambassador rather highly, and one of them, a dervis, demanded an extravagant sum from Sir Jon The diplomatist offered to compromise with him for any reasonable amount, but his offer was refused, and as he would not give more the dervis proceeded to sit upon him. He established himself in Sir John's garden, just before hi 3 study windows, and every now and then during the day, and when he awoke at night, this dervi3 set up a horrid hullabaloo, and blew a cracked trumpet. Sir John, who did not like to have his rest disturbed in this way, determined to put a stop to the dervis' tricks, and eject him by force; but he was solemnly warned by the Persian authorities that it would be dangerous to lay hand-7 upon the dervis. " Get rid of him if yui oan," said thoy, laughing, " but do not touch him." " Very well," said Sir John, dryly ; and he sent for a bricklayer. "Build me a wall around that howling beggar in my garden," said Sir John, to tho bricklayer, " and then roof it in." The dervis looked on composedly while the wall rose slowly around him, and mado more noise than ever; but when he perceived that they really meant to shut him lip in a tomb alive, ho jumped over the lowest part of the wall and rushed away like a maniac. Sir John was probably the only European who ever got the better of a dervis.