The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1909-02-27
FAX. GRANT PARISH. La. SATURDAY. FEBRUARY q 1909
An Interesting Exhibit of For
,eigm NeWSpapers.

An Interesting Exhibit of For
'eign Newspapers.
We extend cordial invitation TO
the public to examine collection OF
from the most remote
parts of the world now on exhibit It
our office. These papers were sent
to us by the Chamberlain Medicine
Co., of Des Moines, Iowa. Some of
the papers bear names of places that
require us tn recallforgotten geogra-
phv or refer to the atlas to locate.
These papers all contain advertise
ments of the we'll known remedies OF
the Chamberlain Medicine Go. We
find the familiar Chinese characters
arranged in vertical lines reading
from top to bottom, the lines read
ing from right to left The Burmese
language, as printed, is composed
principally of combination of cir
cles. Cingalese. the language OF Cey-
Ion. is also curvilinear Javanese
and Siamese are composed largely of
vertical lines connected by loops at
either top or bottom, but rarely at
both.
The four hundred million people OF
India have nearly fifty different dia-
lects or vernaculars. The Sindhi and
Urdu are written from right to left
in the Hebrew fashion. The Urdu is
a sort of script, and is so chaotic in
shape that it is impossible To reduce
it TO the movable type form. Papers
printed in the Urdu language are
therefore first written out by hand
and a plate made by the photographic
process. Besides the vernaculars
and the well known European Ian
guages, French, Spanish. Portuguese,
Dutch, German, etc. the list embraces
number of languages which until
comparatively recent times possessed
no alphabet, but for which the RO-
man alphabet has been adopted
Among these are the nativeHawaiian,
Samoan, Tagalog( PhilippineIslands)
Kaffir, Zulu and Basuto, OF South
Africa. There is also a modern form
of the Malay language using Roman
characters, known MS Romanized Ma
Law. This is used in Java and the
East Indies.
1t is difficult to conceive how thu
readers of some of the papers man
age to handle them. Imagine maj
ON a crowded street car trying tt
read paper whose pages are thirty
eight inches long and twenty-nin
inches wide. This is the size of th
"Hitabadi," Bengali weekly pub
lished in Calcutta, India.
To an American newspaper man
is interesting to note the manner Il
which the colonial English newspa
pers are made up. They still elm
to the methods which were practice
in this country fifty years ago, tn
advertisements being upon the frs
few pages, followed generally by tn
heavy editorials, then "a few lineage
cable and Geographic items, afte
wards the local news. The Ioci
; news consists principally OF the pre-
, cpedipgs of the legislative bodie
, town council, school board, ct
Contribution by the readers are NJ
, merous and lengthy.
The editorials are generally OF
more dignified and serious natu
than American productions. II
daily papers devote more space
book reviews and detailed reports
r scientific progress than Americi
a newspapers do. Humoris not so u
g ticea BILE and cartoons are used mo
d rarely than with us.
7. With few exceptions the advert
r ing pages would giveour 'ad.' write
!, the nightmare. They seem to ha
;, little conception of the value OF spa
or of attractive methods of presel
ing ither the text or the Illustrate
The reports to the Grand Lod