The Mandarin's Yamun
Government residences were provided for all Chinese officials. The residence of a mandarin holding a Seal is called a Yamen; that of a mandarin without a Seal, a Kungsu. The yamuns in some cases were very extensive, occupying several acres of land. From the roof of the halls of many of these official residences were suspended richly gilded boards, on which in large Chinese characters were set forth good and excellent words. Some of these boards were the gifts of succeeding emperors to former occupants who had distinguished themselves by their faithful services. To the yamuns were attached public offices for the transaction of business, and to those which were respectively occupied by district rulers, prefects, tautais, chief justices, and revenue commissioners, very extensive prisons are attached.
The district yamun was a large building, where the courts of justice, prisons, and offices and houses of the mandarins, and other officials, were situated. It consisted of four divisions. The outermost contained the gaols, and places of confinement for short periods, as also the dwellings of the inferior officers. The second contained a hall of justice, for the formal trial of causes and criminals, as also apartments for public records, treasury, &c. The third included the office of the mandarin himself, and rooms for the public reception of visitors; while the innermost division comprised the private residence of the mandarin and his family.
Attached to each of these establishments were the judicial advisers, and private secretaries of the mandarin. These men were the only people in China who devoted themselves solely to the study of the law, and in so far they resembled Western advocates, barristers, and sergeants-at-law ; but they were scarcely ever made mandarins, (judges,) and none of them acted as counsel for either of the litigating parties in an action at law; their sole business was to protect the interests of the mandarin their employer, to point out to him the proper way of conducting his judicial examinations, and to see that the decisions he pronounced are in strict accordance with the laws, so as that he may not incur any of the penalties laid down in the code of the Board of Civil Office, and thus be subiected to degradation or dismissal. These lawyers were not recognized as official servants of government, but were in the private employment of the mandarine.
The yamun of a district magistrate thus comprised within itself what may be called the general police station on a great scale - the county gaol, as it were, for the custody of debtors and of criminal, awaiting trial or execution-the place where quarter-sessions and assizes are held-the offices of all the subordinate officers of these courts, and the office and residence of the chief mandarin, who was at once judge, sheriff, coroner, and commissioner of taxi. In a populous district such a building was calculated to contain from 300 to 500 individuals, and in a less populous place about 200. The Chinese, however, in their domiciles, contrived to pack into amazingly little room, so that their buildings do not at at first view appear so extensive.
The term "Yamun" might also be used to reference an agency, as the Tsungli Yamen was the Board of Foreign Affairs, much as Whitehall was the British Foreign Office. When Westerners came as conquerors and stipulated for intercourse on equal terms, a new vessel was required to hold the new wine of equality and fraternity. The Tsungli Yamen was invented. It was, however, an evolution from the colonial office. The second syllable, li, which signifies control, served to connect it with the latter in a way characteristic of Chinese conservatism and soothing to Chinese pride. Launched in 1861 on a small scale, with three ministers under the presidency of Prince Kung, it expanded until it soon counted in ordinary eight or nine ministers and as many undersecretaries, or chiefs of bureaus. Under these were an army of assistants, exclusive of scribes who were not in the line of promotion.
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