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The Magistrate's Yamen


And once again I must travel on the report, "The peoples and politics of the Far East" (1895) come back from Sir Henry Norman . In reading I came across a picture of a "Yamen" and had to admit that I've missed in the translation of a subordinate clause in a little Dr. Nikola (ashes on my head ...).

The phrase appears at the beginning of the "Expedition of Dr. Nikola" on. The narrator Wilfred Bruce describes his predicament (he is broke and can not pay his bills) and represents fears about his future destiny:

(...) and finally figuring in that in the Mixed Court Magistrate's Yamen (...)

I've translated this to:

(...) to the end before the Mixed Court Magistrate dragged in to Yamen (...) are

This is unfortunately wrong. Was correct not to translate Mixed Court. This was a specific institution in the then Shanghai. One finds, for example, in a information booklet on the Shanghai of the Hamburg Ministry of Education and Sports (Shanghai is now a partner city of Hamburg) on page 17, the following declaration:

for the Chinese population, which occupied so in the branches, the majority in 1864 was a mixed foreign-Chinese dish, the so-called "mixed court" created, which chaired a Chinese official. In civil cases could only choose among the Chinese that, in all other cases, especially if foreigners were involved, had a foreign judge deciding.

is so clearly not me, as far as the powers of that court, because the same source states that

was the Nanjing Treaty of 1842 provides that in litigation, the British Consul for the British nationals and the Chinese local authorities should be responsible for the Chinese.

It sounds to me as if this court could make no ruling on an Englishman.

But no matter, the rest I was completely wrong anyway. First time I have understood the word as a county magistrate (here called Yamen), while generous drop the "'s" under the table to.

A magistrate is (now) a public authority, the executive of a city. In the Middle Ages used this term for elected municipal officials, and so the term is meant also for Boothby: a Chinese official who is among other judges.

And then, Yamen. Click the image mentioned in the travelogue. It is the court itself or the office room of the dignitary.



Well, and what will become of the Mistaken subordinate clause? I would translate it like this today:

(...) to be dragged to the end before a judge of the Mixed Court (...)

Or, if you absolutely want to go courting with the Chinese foreign word:

(...) to finally dragged into the Yamen a judge of the Mixed Court to be (...)

There is always the little details for which you stumble ...