Soon after this mournful event he received by the kindness of Lord Stanley, from the Foreign Office, various extracts from reports referring to Hamadan, dated February 22, 1867. "The Jews," Mr Alison's agent writes, "are this year much more ill-treated than last year. Many of the Jews have run away from this province."
Mr R. T. Thomson in his notes on "The Jews of Oroomiah," writes, on February 1, 1867, "There are two hundred families of Jews residing in the town of Oroomiah. The revenue which they pay to the Persian Government annually is fixed at four hundred tomans, but their master Rejjeb Ali Khan, son of Fazzan Agha, takes six hundred tomans besides sundry fines and other small exactions. It was agreed about twenty years ago that they should pay ten tomans annually, in lieu of forced labour. This sum is regularly exacted, and the forced labour likewise, which consists of clearing snow from the houses of the Master and his friends, removing rubbish, and clearing their courtyards.
If a Jew dies, and has no son to succeed to his property, the will of the deceased is set aside, and the Master takes possession of his property.
"Rejjeb Ali Khan, who returned from Tabreez to Oroomiah last summer, demanded, while I was at the latter town, 120 tomans, the greater part of which he had then collected, and he absolutely refused to reckon this sum as part of the regular taxes. A deputation from the Jews left for Tabreez last summer to petition the authorities there, but the son of the Master heard of their departure, and they had been seized and brought back to Oroomiah.
"As an example of the unfair manner in which these taxes are imposed, the case of one Jew may be cited, who during last year paid twelve tomans as his share, though there are only four persons living in his house, and also that of his brother, who lives by himself and has no shop, and yet had to pay six tomans."
Lord Stanley approved of Mr Alison's exertions in favour of the Jews and Nestorians, and desired him to take every suitable opportunity of strongly pressing upon the Shah and his Ministers the interest felt by Her Majesty's Government in both these classes of his subjects, and their earnest hope that the Shah would extend to them his protection, redress any wrongs which they may suffer, and make his Moslem subjects clearly understand that any act of violence and wrong on Jews or Christians would not only entail upon them personal punishment, but the payment of pecuniary compensation to the sufferers.