Page:Chinese Life in the Tibetan Foothills.djvu/124

 The military bureau, ping fang (兵房), attends to enlistment, drilling and feeding of soldiers, the housing of troops on the march, the arming and conduct of militia and the quarrels and lawsuits of the soldiery.

The bureau of works, kung fang (工房), looks after the city wall and gates and all public buildings and attends to disputes about boundaries and graveyards.

The granary bureau, ts‘ang fang (倉房), is responsible for the public granaries, the buying and selling of rice and its distribution in time of famine or siege.

The tea and salt bureau, yen ch‘a fang (鹽茶房). The trade is a monopoly in each city and the bureau looks after the revenue from this source.

The punishments bureau, hsing fang (刑房), attends to litigation about deaths by violence; the wu tso (仵作), is officially attached to it.

The litigation registry bureau, ch‘êng fa fang (承發房), records all the indictments, etc., and is responsible for indictments passing up into the magistrate's hands.

The interpretation bureau, i ch‘ing fang (夷情房), only exists in frontier districts, where the aboriginal tribes make it necessary.

Yamen Runners. In Ch‘ung ch‘ing chou districts there are some 3,000, with 300 ling pan (領班), or superiors: there they control the literati. In Kuan hsien the case is reversed, because that district has produced two or three Han-lin scholars, thus raising the status of the literati. Ch‘ung ch‘ing has only produced chin shih (進士). The result is that the yamen runners' oppression is intolerable in one place while it may be mitigated in another.

Warrants may be given to a ling pan to call up an accused person, huan p‘iao (喚票), or to apprehend him, chü p‘iao (拘票), or for an immediate arrest, ch‘u ch‘ien (出籤), or to summon a man in public service to answer a charge of corruption, ch‘ien ch‘uan (籤傳), or to assemble gentry and public men for consultation, ch‘uan tan (傳單).