Ch.XXVI, p.608, f.1
"If sometime thou shouldst happen to visit the prison of His Majesty the
Shah, ask thou the director and chief of that place to show thee those two
chains, one of which is known as Qara-Guhar and the other as Salasil. I
swear by the Day-star of Justice, that during four months, I was weighted
and tormented by one of these chains. `The sorrow of Jacob paleth before
my sorrow; and all the afflictions of Job were but a part of my
calamities.'" ("The Epistle to the Son of the Wolf," p. 57.) "Concerning
the Persian mode of imprisonment, the practice is as different from our own
as in the case of penalties. There is no such thing as penal servitude for
life, or even for a term of years; hard labour is unknown as a sentence;
and confinement for any lengthy period is rare. There is usually a
gaol-delivery at the beginning of the new year; and when a fresh governor
is appointed, he not uncommonly empties the prison that may have been
filled by his predecessor, one or two of the worst cases, perhaps,
suffering the death penalty, in order to create a salutary impression of
strength. There is no such thing as a female ward, women being detained,
as also are male criminals of high rank, in the house of a priest. In
Tihran there are said to be three kinds of prison the subterranean cells
beneath the Ark, where criminals guilty of conspiracy, or high treason are
reported to have been confined; the town prison, where the vulgar criminals
may be seen with iron collars round their neck, sometimes with their feet
in stocks, and attached to each other by iron chains; and the private
guard-house, that is frequently an appurtenance of the mansions of the
great. It will be seen that the Persian theory of justice, as expressed
both in judicial sentences, in the infliction of penalties, and in the
prison code, is one of sharp and rapid procedure, whose object is the
punishment (in a manner as roughly equivalent as possible to the original
offence), but in no sense the reformation, of the culprit." Lord Curzon's
"Persia and the Persian Question," vol. i, pp. 458-9.)