The unfortunate episode of the Tobacco Régie in 1891 gave the Moullas a
chance to assert themselves, and they promptly seized the opportunity to
champion a popular cause of discontent, and the pity of it was that the
enterprise which raised the disturbance was English. This tobacco
monopoly had been pictured as a business certain to produce great gains,
and the people were thus prepared for the reports which were spread of
high prices to be charged on what they regard as almost a necessary of
life. The conditions of the country were not fully studied before the
monopoly powers were put in force. A suggestion was made that the
company's operations should be confined at first to the foreign export,
which would have returned a good profit, and that afterwards a beginning
should be made at Tehran, to prove to the people that the monopoly would
really give them better tobacco, and not raise prices, which the company
claimed would be the result of their system. But everything was planned
on an extensive scale, and so were prospective profits. The picture of a
rapid road to fortune had been exhibited, and it was therefore decided
that the full right of monopoly should be established at once. An
imprudent beginning was made in exercising the right of search in a
manner which alarmed some people for the privacy of their homes, a
dangerous suggestion in a Mohammedan community.

The suspicions and fears of all--buyers, sellers, and smokers--were
easily worked upon by the priests, ever ready to assert the supremacy of
the Church over the State. And then the biggest 'strike' I know of took
place. Mirza Hassan, the High-Priest of Kerbela, the most sacred shrine
of the Shiah Mohammedans, declared tobacco in Persia to be 'unlawful' to
the true believer, and everyone--man, woman, and child--was forbidden to
sell or smoke it. The 'strike' took place on a gigantic scale, a million
or two certainly being engaged in it, and steps were taken to see the
order from Kerbela carried out rigorously. 'Vigilance men,' under the