The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1908-05-01
for transmission.

termined by the exhibition of proves
at these two festivals. The wrestlers
are in training for weeks, drinking as
many gallons of beer each day as pos
sible to make them fat. The Toxic
newspapers send special correspondents
to the training quarters, columns of
gossip are printed each day and snap
shots of the heroes in characteristic
attitudes appear from time to time.
When a baseball team from Hawaii
came to play a series with a Toxic
college nine, the newspapers treated ii
with columns of space, just as Amer
lean dailies play up the post-series
championship games between the lead
ers of the rival major leagues.
Mr.. Taft landed in Yokohama at nine
O'Clock in the morning. At four o'clock
in the afternoon the Toxic Hochi was
on the street with halftone pictures of
the distinguished American on his way
down the gang-plank. In the present
political campaign the leading news
papers will send special correspondents
10 close districts to follow the candi-
dates on the hastings. During the
late war with Russia nearly every
newspaper in Japan had a man at the
front, and the war news was given to
the people in extras which appeared
with a frequency reminding one of New
York in 1898.
The business end of the newspaper
also follows closely the pattern of the
western journalism. The papers are
circulated for from ten to twenty-five
cents a month, less than it costs to
produce them. In Japan, as in Amer
lea, circulation is a losing game and
profit must come from advertising. The
rates for advertising here are exceed
ingly high in proportion to the general
standard of living. One OF the leading
newspapers of Toxic charges thirty
cents line, six lines to the inch. Pa
per is cheaper than in the United
States and labor costs nothing like as
much. The typesetters receive from
fifteen to fifty cents a day, the fore
man not more than a dollar. In the
press room fifty cents a day is consid-
cred high wages. The editorial help
ers are better paid, reversing the rule
obtaining in the United States where
the average reporter receives a smaller
salary than the compositor who puts
his copy into type.
The Jill Shimpo, or Times News
paper, has its main office in Toxic,
but it publishes a simultaneous edition
in Osaka. 800 miles away. The work
is done by telephone, the Toxic edition
being transmitted verbatim over four
wires leased from the Imperial post
office. 1t is received by shorthand
writer's, who transcribe the copy by
details and rush it to the printer in
Osaka within a few minutes after the
proof sheets have reached the Toxic
editorial rooms. The Jill has a cir
culation of 100000 copies. 1t is one of
the representatives of the higher class
of conservative newspapers, its rank
being shared by the Toxic Asahi and
several others. The Hochi is the lead
ing radical paper being positive in its
political views, although not yellow.
The yellow journals" are numerous
all over the Empire and many of them
have an enormous circulation.
The bitterness of attacks upon po-
litical opponents in the sensational
press goes FAR beyond the worst exhi-
billions of journalistic venom known in
America today. Sixty years ago the
purely political sheets in the United
States may have been as furious as
their japanese successors of today, but
the filth employed by the lower class
japanese editor has been utterly i'm
possible among English-speaking peo-
pie since long before the newspaper
was born into the world. Of course
the freedom of the press does not ex-
tend so far that an attack could be
made upon the Emperor. He is still
regarded as something more than hui
man, as the tangible center of the
national spirit against which no pa
triot may sin in word, thought or deed.
The worst thing a japanese critic can
say of an opponent in politics is: He
is false to the Emperor"
In front of the publication Office of
any Toxic paper, or at branch offices,
crowds are continually gathered about
the bulletin boards. The very lowest
and poorest of people buy newspapers
and through them gain an idea of what
S going on in the world. japanese
peasants have been heard discussing
n their own language the probabilities
# Mr.. Roosevelt's taking another term
If office and then making himself En-
leror. This incident shows that the
Japanese point of view is such that he
-annot always interpret foreign news |
but it must be remembered
hat thirty years ago the japanese
peasant did not know America existed, |
md was firm in the belief that Japan
md China made up the whole world, |
o say nothing of his theory that the
.un and moon were made in Japan
md afterwards hung in the heavens.
In the cities, the people who two
ears ago formed mobs to throw stones
It the terrible foreign devil invention
allied a trolley car, are now demand
ng one-cent fares and municipal own
rship of rapid transit facilities. The
did this. When Chicago
vas in the throes of a campaign on
he rapid transit and municipal own
rship question, the japanese news
apers told their people about it. They
ook the municipal ownership side and
ar lines These examples of the in
uence of the newspapers in bringing
restern ideas to the masses of the
eople. illustrate what a force the ORR
ntal press may become. The fifty
billions of japanese are being reached
V newspapers-the four hundred mil
ons of Chinese may yet receive the
~. i.