An unpleasant element of "graft" was also brought to light. No Persian for very long can keep his itching fingers from other people's money. The native foremen of the road gangs were not an exception to the rule, and for a brief period they made a lucrative income by trafficking in labour tickets. First they issued spurious ones to their friends and relatives, none of whom had done a stroke of work; they even sought, somewhat clumsily to be sure, to counterfeit the official stamp which each ticket bore on its face. They rubbed some Indian ink on the reverse side of a two-kran piece, and with this stamped the forged tickets, adding a few pencil strokes _à la {125} fantasie_ by way of giving a finishing touch of verisimilitude. As the tickets entitled the bearers to draw four krans when presented nightly at the pay office, the thieving foremen were in a fair way to becoming rich by the time the fraud was discovered. The same individuals were also in the habit of coercing their hapless underlings into selling their tickets for a kran or two. These were then resold to a middleman, who cashed them at their full face value. But a liberal application of the bastinado worked wonders, and speedily rendered such dishonest practices highly unpopular. Still, it was felt that some radical alteration was necessary if we were to get full value for, and the Hamadan poor full benefit from, the money that was being expended on their behalf. General Byron, a level-headed practical soldier, and very wise in worldly knowledge, who at this time was second in command to General Dunsterville, now took over control of famine relief work. He decided upon an alteration of the existing system of doles in favour of one consisting of a free distribution in food supplemented by payment in cash of two krans instead of four. Bread alone was deemed to be insufficient, and it was felt that the starving people who toiled daily road-making required some more nourishing food. After overcoming many difficulties, official as well as unofficial, and silencing the usual group of objectors who vowed that it could not be done, the {126} General opened soup kitchens at several centres, and fed as many as 2,000 hungry people per day.