Even in those days it was not possible to make people good by law. Paraphrasing the copy-book, suppressed desires will arise, though all the world o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. An unjust law was no more enforceable in those centuries than it is in the twentieth century. Men are humans first, although they may become brutish when bereft of reason. But coffee does not steal away their reason; rather, it sharpens their reasoning faculties. As Galland has truly said: "Coffee joins men, born for society, in a more perfect union; protestations are more sincere in being made at a time when the mind is not clouded with fumes and vapors, and therefore not easily forgotten, which too frequently happens when made over a bottle." [Illustration: CHARACTERISTIC SCENE IN A TURKISH COFFEE HOUSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY] Despite the severe penalties staring them in the face, violations of the law were plentiful among the people of Constantinople. Venders of the beverage appeared in the market-places with "large copper vessels with fire under them; and those who had a mind to drink were invited to step into any neighboring shop where every one was welcome on such an account." Later, Kuprili, having assured himself that the coffee houses were no longer a menace to his policies, permitted the free use of the beverage that he had previously forbidden. _Coffee and Coffee Houses in Persia_ Some writers claim for Persia the discovery of the coffee drink; but there is no evidence to support the claim. There are, however, sufficient facts to justify a belief that here, as in Ethiopia, coffee has been known from time immemorial--which is a very convenient phrase. At an early date the coffee house became an established institution in the chief towns. The Persians appear to have used far more intelligence than the Turks in handling the political phase of the coffee-house question, and so it never became necessary to order them suppressed in Persia. The wife of Shah Abbas, observing that great numbers of people were wont to gather and to talk politics in the leading coffee house of Ispahan, appointed a mollah--an ecclesiastical teacher and expounder of the law--to sit there daily to entertain the frequenters of the place with nicely turned points of history, law, and poetry. Being a man of wisdom and great tact, he avoided controversial questions of state; and so politics were kept in the background. He proved a welcome visitor, and was made much of by the guests. This example was generally followed, and as a result disturbances were rare in the coffee houses of Ispahan.