Next to the 'wheat-ring' as a cause of disturbance and riot comes what may be called the 'copper-ring' of Tehran, which is likely to produce serious trouble throughout the country. The Royal Mint in Persia is worked on the farming system, the evils of which have now extended to the currency. The low price of copper allows of it being coined at an enormous profit, and advantage has been taken of this to a dangerous extent. The whole country is now poisoned with 'black money,' as the coppers are called, and it is at a heavy discount. This bears cruelly on the labouring classes and all who are paid in copper coin. Owing to exchange with Europe keeping above silver, that metal cannot be imported and coined, so as to give a gain to the Mint-master, who has no idea of sacrificing any of the great profit he has made on copper. No silver has been coined since March, 1895, and this is the Mint-master's excuse for sending out copper in great quantities, to take the place of silver. Twenty copper shahi go to a kran (present exchange value 4-1/2d.), and in the absence of silver employers of labour pay wholly in copper, which for bazaar purposes is at a discount, so much so that, when a purchase is beyond question above a kran in amount, an agreement as to payment in silver or copper is first made, and then the bargaining begins. In a country where money bears a high value, as proved by the fact that accounts are still reckoned in dinars, an imaginary coin, of which one thousand go to a silver kran and fifty to a copper shahi, the depreciation I have mentioned is a very serious affair, for it touches the mass of the people sorely. When travelling off the beaten track in Persia, I have always been amused and interested in hearing my head-servant announce loudly in a tone of importance and satisfaction to my village host for the night that I had ordered so many 'thousands' to be given for house-room, fuel, barley, straw, etc. The kran was never mentioned; it was always a 'thousand.'[A] [Footnote: A: Since the above was written, information has been received that the late Shah, about three weeks before his death, promulgated a decree directing the Mint coinage of copper to be suspended for a term of five years, and intimating that the Customs, Post-office and Telegraph departments would accept copper coin to a certain amount in cash transactions, at a fixed rate. And, further, arrangements have been made with the Imperial Bank of Persia to purchase, on account of the Government, copper coin up to a certain sum, from small _bona-fide_ holders who are in possession of it in the regular course of retail business for the necessaries of life.] CHAPTER IV.