150
C. MARTIN WILBUR
Before the sale can be considered official it must be stamped by the Ti-pao, and it is then registered at the office of the district magistrate. This process is called kuo kê (#1), "passing the cutting off", meaning the transference of the tax liability of the old owner to the new; or, cutting off the slip showing the tax liability from the old deed and pasting it on the new. Since registration costs to the amount of five or six percent of the purchase price, excluding extras, it is common, and perhaps universal, to understate the sale price on the copy of the deed sent in to the magistrate. Thus do the people do their part to equalize the excess taxation to which they are subjected on all occasions. For his part in the deal, the Ti-pao gets a small fee.
III
Beyond its interest in collecting taxes the central government feels in some measure bound to preserve peace and prevent crimes in the villages. To affect these aims it works both through the Ti-pao and through the recognized village elders (when the two are not synonymous). The Ti-pao is the accredited police chief of the village. A good idea of the multifarious nature of his duties is given by a description of them in the Ta Ch'ing Hui Tien:
If any of the undermentioned offences are committed within the Tithing, the Tithing man shall be specially responsible for making the necessary inquiries and reporting the fact, viz: theft, corrupt teaching, gambling, hiding and absconding from justice, kidnapping, coining, establishing secret society, and so on. He shall also be required to report all suspicious characters arriving within his bounds, and see that the necessary alterations are made from time to time in the Register of Individuals in each family. If constables from a neighboring jurisdiction come in pursuit of offenders in virtue of a warrant, he shall assist in arresting, but if any of the Yâmen constables wrongfully arrests an innocent man, he may lay the facts before the district Magistrate.
1 Jamieson, op. cit., p. 97.
2 Ibid., p. 98.