需索讼费:清末民间诉讼中的吏役——以《陶甓公牍》中相关案件为例

Extracting Litigation Fees: A Look at the Image of Bailiffs in Civil Litigation Cases in the Late Qing Dynasty

清末徽州的民间诉讼中,吏役因讼索费的现象十分普遍。《陶甓公牍》记载的几个典型案例反映出吏役在需索讼费时呈现出上下勾结、内外串联,鱼肉良懦、贪得无厌,巧立名目、层层克扣,煽动挑唆、狡诈异常的行为特点。而这种行为对案件的审判进程、民众对诉讼的态度、地方官处理民间诉讼的方式以及吏役群体的自身形象产生了巨大影响。吏役需索讼费现象在清末的延续、加重和顽固与当时的社会环境密切相关,是各种社会因素环环相扣,相互影响,形成恶性循环的结果。

In the late Qing Dynasty, it is a wide spre adpractice for runners or bailiffs in a feudal yamen to cha rge or extract fees for civil litigation cases in the mountainous region of Huizhou in the south of Anhui province. The Tao Pi ’ s Wooden Tablets （陶璧公赎）vividly delineates the collusive , selfish , avaricious , an dinsatiable behaviors of those bailiffs in extracting exorbitant, abominable and ludicrous fees from parties involved in civil litigation cases. Without a doubt, such irregularities regarding the extraction or extortion of litigation fees had cast a negative impact on the image of not only these yamen runners but also the entire judiciary of the late Qing Dynasty. The persist-ence ,aggravation and routinization of such abnormal practices were closely related to the social ethos at the time, which could be viewed as an inevitable by-product of the interconnections and interactivities of various social factors at the end of the Qing Dynasty.