Show L it a 7 Z 4 A X japanese newsboy boy 4 prepared by the national geographic t C society washington D C 11 rj ahe recent burning in tokyo of T t the a plant of the japan advert 7 JL alser er best known american dally daily newspaper in iii the orient arouses interest in ats its japanese corn com s and the way ay in which west ern cm newspaper methods have been heau adapted ad apted to conditions tn lii mhd land of the rising sun that japan should in ilie very few years vears since her ter modern metamorphosis have so speedily caught up with the an of of periodical publication la Is less wonderful when one remembers remen ibers tint that the orient Is tile the birthplace of the art preservative and that china pos possesses besses the oldest newspaper to in the ithe world there have heen been si tullar pers from remote nAh antiquity julty in japan mail email IS sheets roughly struck off MY from bonden detailing some great political fact 0 or describing some t or some soine getler ally interesting event the first attempt at a modern modem journot journal in japan was mas in 1864 when tile the Kii algal was hi by joseph hess a picturesque character who in 1850 was baft away in tile the wrecking of a junk rescued and car ried to Anier america fea here tie be lived forra for a number gumbei of years acquired a smatter iter ing of western ideas Adeas and methods and when tapan japan was opened after th the visitor visit of coi commodore eodore perry returned to his native land as an infer interpreter preter the first modern newspaper month ly worthy of the name was founded by john black an Enill englishman one of the first foreign residents of yoko toko barna this was in 1872 since then japanese journalism has grown with wonderful rapidity both in volume andin end in character there are now some eight hundred newspapers and mag azanes azin es published in the empire of which more than two hundred are in tokyo of the newspapers there are the Kua ropo which li Is the off official lelal gazette gayette containing the government govern me ut announce announcements such as laws regulations and appointments the Kokum ln much quoted in press dispatches from tokyo toko as giving the government opinion of things international during the premiership mier ship of prince katsura and the kiehl bichl as expressing popular sentiment of the better sort of magazines there are scores of every sort and kind ilter literary ary artl artistic legal medical scientific technical clong along all lines of modern accomplishment and endeavor jiji shimao Is the times the corresponds in a rue measure asure to our w words tile the times time means timely events eyerts or dally daily events Is the ahe word for journal or merely paper the JIJI shimao Is a monument entIn in a way to the memory of its founder not more a monument than a coustant constant reincarnation of his spirit and nd influx ence cuce it was founded 48 years ago hy by the late fukuzawa kuyawa Fu yukichi Yuki cht who was often called the japanese 6 gladstone alstone adstone ad stone i no account of japan however brief and particularly no reference to its intellectual and literary development would be complete without reference to the life and influence of this re workable man the policy of the paper Is independent it is PArt partisan laRn only in thit it Is liberal devoted to progress and opposed I 1 to any retrograde policy tn in japanese civilization ahou it ft takes occasion to differ with the government ment it does doea so with ith dig nitle d and logical criticism and not with the hysterical hysteric I 1 ef fusions that thai appear in the yellow i ellow journals that have developed tn in japan it as elsewhere because of this scholarly and dig wiled dined character JIJI shimao wields a great influence and its voa vone e la Is potent in shaping shap ing and controlling public ion the paper emphasizes Us its commer i i t A caul department an and d a staff of trained men looks after this pait efti of the ne A foreign department of edl editors caresio cares for fo r the thee cable able and telegraph dispatches and keeps in close and intelligent tell telli igent geni touch v a ith ath international of at falls domestic news is gathered by correspondents spon dents in every city and important town of the empire sifted and arranged by two editors twenty men compose the city staff and in ili close harmony with tile the reportorial Port orial methods of our occidental papers cover the local news of tokyo toko a city of more than two million in common with all oriental languages IE ln japanese Is written and printed from right to left and the ithe title therefore Is in the upper right hand corner corner of what would zooid be for us the afie eighth page the lines of print are vertical and read i from top to bottom and from right to left jeff E each ch article win Is in a small square surrounded by a border how hov the type Is set typesetting in japanese ja anese is a tedious and laborious labor lous piece of b business from oil an occidental viewpoint view point though the many hands emp employed loyid make it rapid enough in an oriental sense japanese Is printed in tivo sets of characters the thel borrowed chinese which are ideographic each representing represent inga a bordor word or a group of words and side by side aide with these characters in their vertical line runs the translation or explanation in the indigenous grass characters a sort of 0 f phonetic ph onetia or stenographic script easily read and understood by the common and uneducated f people when an article or editorial Is ready in manuscript it ts Is sent first to the ideographic composing room where it Is divided into bakes tate cs and given to chinese compositors the room la Is filled with closely set racks containing the t thousands of varieties of ideographic type each compositor goes from rack to rack looking for the character c required Th thadlie atlie may not forget what he Is looking for tie he sings rings it over and over audibly in a cracked nasal sort sart 0 of f singsong sing song A composing room Is anything but a quiet place resembling the chorus of a chinese theater when the he article is finished it Is placed in a sort of galley tied together and sent to the real compositors who untie it and proceed with a pair of tweezers to place the small grass type beside the ideograph characters this work demands scholarship of a 4 high order for it requires not only an accurate and exact knowledge of orthography and languit language but general information in regard to the subjects discussed that the multi meaning characters way may be inter k the type ib thus its completed Is proved the proof carefully read and corrected and taken then to the imposing stories stones where it goes into the make makeup up of the paper ail all typeset typesetting ling Is 19 necessity of hand wo work ik as an the becu peculiar bior character odthe language precludes ithe feol I 1 a alno W I 1 stereotyping and press presa w work ork a are re along the ordinary lines required for an american Amerl cau perfecting machine botn which the paper comes folded and counted as in one of our own establishments lish ments 1 tile the days work la Is similar to our own the hours differ silently T the he editorial department begins activities about eleven in the morning and its work Is completed by five in the aft afternoon ernson er noon the typesetters are at work breight by eight the business offices are open froni from ten to ten y the first edition Is anthe on atie press by eight lu in ordet that hat it may catch the night tri trains tint for provincial circulation T the lie city edition goes to press at a a ro |