The Portland daily press., 1900-08-03
CHINESE DAILY PAPER.
Printed In San Francisco by a Prcsby-
terrain Minister.


(St. Louis Republic Specially
San Francisco, July 91.-The only
Chinese daily newspaper outside the
Celestial Empire is published in this
city by native Chinaman, who is a reg
ularly ordained Presbyterian minister
1t is new and prospecting six-page jour
nal called "Chung Sal Vat Po,' which
means Middle and West Daily News, or
Chinese and American Daily News. AL
ready it has 8, 500 subscribers, mora than
half of them at distance from the city
of publication, many of the papers being
taken at Butte Mont, at Portland, Ore,
at Victoria and at Vancouver, British
Columbia, at Los Angeles and az Sacra-
mento in California, and at towns in
Mexico and in South America. The
circulation is increasing and extending,
for this Chinese daily is scarcely five
months old.
The printing of such a paper is an in
teresting novelty. Instead of the simple
twenty six letters used in the English
alphabet, the Chinese typesetter must
wander among more than a hundred
cases, containing the II, 900 different char
acters with which the sons of old Con-
fucius express their ideas in words. These
characters are arranged in PA correlative
groups, each of which contains the words
of similar root or radical. For example,
all diseases are in a group and all trees
in another. In this way the work of the
typ esetter is simpllfied. Instead of re-
IN embering the 1llcular little compart
ment for each of the II ,OO0 words, h,
learns the location o each of the q.
n groups. Even then his task is a huge
job, compared with learning the puzzlins
divisions of the rack containing thu
it English alphabet.
n The Chinese type cases are lnclineS
% upon A-shaped racks, and are grouped
~ according to the relative commences o
is the words, Ideas most frequently use
o are in the first alleyway of cases, and tn
# rarest words are to be found In the Klas
avenue. In setting up an article in typ
the Chinese frequently has to walk NOR
T than a mile, turning up and down tn
S little alleyways of cases, picking out
type here, selecting another there, cross
= ing from side to side, winding in and on
among the racks; and slowly building hi
l. sentence from the metallic blocks %
g strange blocking symbols
Though printing was invented in Chin
centuries ago, daily newspapers are yer
rare in the ancient empire. Movabl
offices. Today there are not more thar
thirty Chinese daily newspapers in al
China, Canton has four, Hong KOn
three, Pekin two and some other larg,
cities have one each. But in the grea
capital is published the Pekin Gazette
o. the Oldest daily newspaper in the world
, lt is government organ, amounting t
little more than an official bulletin o
edic5s and DEGREES. 1t is printed on films
S yellOWish paper of the consistency o
Chinese paper napkins, is fastened lik
a small notebook, and contains some
fifty or sixty pages about twelve inches
, long and three inches wide. There ar
@ no illustrations, no head lines. The con
tents are dry and dreary. On the 0utsid,
front page, which is the back is a crude
cut of mandarin Of the tirst-class, {
bearded and much-bsgarbed Individual
printed in pink ink, while the body o
the paper is printed in black. 1t cost
So year
The "Chung Sal Vat POI is a produc
of the brains of one man and OF the
financial support OF a combination of tn
most influential merchants in San Fran
clscO's Chinatown. Its history has beer
as brief as its development has beer
rapid,
Ng poop Chew, the managing editor
is native of southern China. He cam
to California when boy of IA. He live
IN San Jose first. There he attended tn
Chinese mission school kfor three year
linen he moved to San Francisco anS
entered the local Presbyterian school O
the Occidental Board Of Foreign Missions
and studied there for live years He theJ
became student in the PRESBYTERIAN
theological seminary, and, after three
years course, was regularly graduated
from the San AnselmO Institution and
ordained a Presbyterian minister. II:
was member of tic class OF 1892
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