Note 109 — ASIA. (continued 2)

It is desirable that this word be expunged from all works on China and eastern Asia, and the proper words officers, authorities, magistrates, &c., be used instead. Every officer, from a prime minister to a constable or tide-waiter, is called a mandarin by foreigners, partly because those who write do not know the rank of the person, and partly from the common custom of calling many things in China by some peculiar term, as if they were unlike the same things elsewhere.