Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-12-04
PRINTING IN JAPAN.
CuriOsities of a Composing Room and
How the Printers Work.
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Curiosities of a Composing Room and
How the Printers Work.
From the Chicago Record.
The composing room of japanese print
ing office would appall an American printer.
The ordinary Japanese vocabulary Is repre-
scented by 4,427 different characters or ideo-
graphs. and forty-seven simple characters.
known as kanas, which are used to connect
and complete them. For official business,
such as the printing needed by the execu-
tive departments of the government, 1906
more characters are needed, and to set the
parliamentary debates 5,9S7 more are re-
quired, making a total of 1O,920 different
characters in a single font, such as is used
In the Insetsulsioku. Nor is that the limit.
There are between 1900 and 10000 more
ideographs in the scientific vocabulary. and
l was told that it would require at least
$1,000 varieties of letters to answer all pos
stble demands of Japanese published lite
nature. Think of printers case contain
ing $4,000 compartments.
There is no alphabet of the Japanese Ian
guage, as ~e understand that term. Each
word is represented by different charac-
ter or Telegraph, whose meaning is modi-
fled or enlarged by the edition of a kama a.
necessary, used either as a prefix or a suf-
fix, or both.
A font of Japanese type occupies space
about eight or ten feet square. 1t is a pen
of racks and cases, arrayed in the form of
a hollow square, with a narrow passage
to afford an entrance and exit. The chief
compositor sits at a table in the center with
case containing a supply Of the forty
seven kama before him and a long, peculiar
looking composing stick in his hand. He
cuts his copy into small takes and gives
one to each of his five or six assistants.
who are usually small boys and girls with
n os,,rr lit,
composing sticks, ard with their takes"
held deity with the composing sticks in
their left hands, they rush around in front
of the cases and pick the type that are
singing aloud the name of the character
until they find it. The work of composing
Is therefors a bedlam, which would drive
an American printer out of his wits.
The uneducated Japanese cannot recog-
nize the. meaning of printed character
by the eye, but only by the ear. There
fore he must read aloud. They always
have to read their newspapers aloud to
dren studied aloud, and a traveller always
knew when he~was in the neighborhood of
a school by the sound of their voices, the
same as a sawmill or boiler factory: but
the government has prohibited this in the
public schools, and the youngsters are
taught by sight and not by sound in these
days of modern innovations. But in the
interior you still find the old-fashioned
method of learning in use.
When boy has collected all the charac-
tiers in his take he places the compos-
irg stick with the copy upon the table be
fore the chief compositor, who wears a big
pair of strong magnifying glasses. and he
oranges them in his own stick in their
proper order. inserting the kama from his
own case when they are needed. Then he
dumps them on a galley and turns them over
to the proper attendant. who pulls proof
and takes 1t with the copy to the proof
reader. who reads it aloud while his assis-
tant holds the copy and follows him.
1t is explained that children are used to
assist the compositor because they have
better memories than adults and their lit
tie fingers are more deft In picking the
type out Of the narrow little slips, and the
extraordinary memo ry of a child compost
tor is always amazing to the stranger in
Japan. But the race has been trained by
the experience of centuries to remember.
Japanese never forgets anything. And
when you realize that all education Is
simple matter Of memory, the phenomenon
is not so strange Every word In the Ian
guage is represented by single character,
and, as I have said, there are over 1000
words in the ordinary conversational vo-
cabulary. The vocabulary of the peasant
class is. Of course, much more limited, and
contains, perhaps, 700 or 800 words. But
to read a newspaper or an ordinary, sim
pie book, one must be able to recognize at
least 2,OOO sigrs
The child in the primary school begins
by learning simple sentences, and commits
10 memory every WCTu sign III his Piitilci.
Then he takes a higher step, a wider range
of words, as he advances into literature
until, when he has reached the grammar
school, his little mind Is stored with an
enormous number Of words, and is able to
recognize the signs that represent them
and the meaning they convey.
A case of type Is about three feet long
ard two feet wide, divided into two grand
divisions by a horizontal partition. Then
each division Is snbdivided into equal little
narrow slips just wide enough to admit the
type which are all of the same size and
stand on end with their faces upward
There are usually forty slips in each d.
vision and eighty in each case. The cases
are usually double. and therefore contain
100 different characters. On each rack are
twelve cases and 1929 kinds OF type on
each rack. So that twelve racks will car
ry very full font of type. containing
about 1900 characters, sufficient to sup
ply almost any demand. The ordinary
composing room contains about six racks,
or 10000 variety Of type. with plenty of
loom for sorts.