The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-03-26 00:00:00

CHINESE NEWSPAPERS.

Until a few decades ago advertisements were un-
known in Chinese journalism (says The Times). Such
announcements were only to be found at the street
corners. Here and there loose leaflets were distri-
buted containing little else than a sensational story of
robbery, as the breaking of an armed band into a
pawnshop, or an account of the death of a man-eating
tiger. ,
From an article in the Austrian illenatschift for the
East, by Herr F. Hirth, of Shanghai, we learn that
of existing newspapers only one is due to purely
Chinese initiative, the so-called King-pm, or Pain
Gazette, which, solely confined to official decrees, can
scarcely be compared with European journals. The
King-pm is the organ of Government, and disdains
to concern itself with non-official matters or any-
thing connected with trade. Advertisements are not
to be thought of. On the other hand, it may
be regarded as a happy sign of the times that the
idea of newspapers in the European sense, or first
started by Europeans, is becoming more and more
understood and acted on in the coast provinces. There
exist at present several papers printed in Chinese
characters, partly in Hongkong, partly in Shanghai.
Amoy has also had for some little time its Chinese organ.
The Shen-pao, a daily paper, founded by Mr. Ernest
Major, which under eminent editorship, advocates the
progressive interests of the European party, numbers
its Chinese subscribers by the ten thousand, and is
read not only in Shanghai and the neighbourhood, but
also here and there in the interior of China, especially
in the provincial chief towns and in the Treaty
Ports. As an opposition organ was founded several
years ago by the anti-European or Mandarin party,
the Sin-pm, edited after the model of the other, but
conducted on a different platform. The Sin-pao has
also a large contingent of readers. Both papers contain
a full reprint of the King-pao ; the Chinese reader
thus saves his subscription to the official organ, and
receives besides a large supply of news, which, after
he gets used to this kind of reading, interests him
exceedingly. A stroll through the Chinese quarter of
Shanghai yields the best evidence of this. At almost
every door will be found people diligently studying
one or other of the two papers. If we examine the
contents of these sheets we find first of all, after the
reprint of the State Gazette, a leading article. In this
is seen the chief difference between the two party
papers, unless the subject is purely literary, when
there is no opportunity for airing political prejudices.
To the latter belong, indeed, questions which with us
have long ceased to have anything to do with politics.
After this follow matters which . uropean readers
are not only tedious, but diffi to understand,
mixed news, partly translated fr... English papers,
partly collected by special reporters from among
the people. These news contain mostly matters
of fact, and are as trustworthy as in most of the
European papers. A considerable role is played
by the accounts of the sittings of the Mixed Courts.
Then come copies of proclamations by the local
mandarins, and lastly advertisements, among which
will be found announcements of special European
firms. Here an apothecary extols an unfailing cure
for opium-smoking; there a Geneva watchmaker
commends his newest manufacture with Chinese divi-
sion of time on the dial; a dentist asks attention to
his artistic -sets of teeth; a Japanese trader to his
importation of eye-water; the importer of English and
German war materials, as cannons, flints, revolvers,
and munitions, sounds the praise of the goods he has
for sale, whether Krupps or Armstrongs ; then come
numerous announcements, as of auctions of all kinds,
or the sale of Manilla lottery-tickets; lastly coins
market items, daily memoranda on the most important
trade articles; an exchange column, as we should call
it, gives the different values of the various kinds of
money, and a notice of the outgoing and incoming
steamers.

There is no doubt that Chinese journalism, still in
its infancy, forms a powerful means of furthering
European interests; even the anti-progressive Sin-pao
indicates, by its very existence, an advance in the fact
of its utilizing a Western medium of civilisation onthe
part of this conservative people, and may therefore be
regarded as a happy siva.