The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-01-16
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other with green, and others with blue, yellow or black
 China's New Alphabet.
 Our alphabet has only 26 letters, and the characters used by our printers are com paratively few. The classic. Chinese has many thousand characters; and. in the simplest of the school books, several thousand are nsed. In the Chinese now in use every character expresses a word; the language is idiographic; that is, 1t is written in words, rather than letters and sylables. A Chinese alphabet is now being formed and a new system of writing inaugurated.
 At present all penmanship Is with a brush and India ink, the brush being held almost perpendicular. About 2000 years ago the people had a penmanship based upon curved lines. but this was difficult to produce by the brush and 1t was prac- tically abolished Metal pens and fluid inks will now be brought in, and the old curves will come into use. This will prac- tically kill the brush-pen and India ink business and a great industry will go to the wall.
 The new alphabet is to have 50 letters. With 1t different system of printing and writing will come into being, and the probability is that the typewriter will be so adapted to the new system that 1t will come into use.
 In the Casting Room. At present every character employed in the printing house has to have its own matrix and be cast separately. and the characters are so delicate that they must be new in order to do good work. In the composing room I visited six different kinds of type were employed, and of these more than 5000 characters of each style are kept on hand, This necessitates the making of 50000 different characters, each of which must have it's own matrix or die, in the shape of a brass type from a quarter to half inch square and an inch long. This die is fitted into a east ing box, and by turning a crank the types are turned out at the rate of 20 or 30 a minute. A score or so of such ma- chimes were busy at the time went through the stereotyping department. and their clicking made as much noise as so many corn shelters. In an adjoining room I was shown the mat rices of the books already published They filled the shelves which walled the sides of large room from floor to ceiling. An other room was devoted to storing elec- trotype plates. everything being cata- logged and as systematically arranged as in one of our modern printing offices at home.
 In the composing room each printer stood in a little alcove walled with cases, and he usually had a boy to run and fetch the tyres from other parts of tho room.
 With the Blndery GirIs.
 I next went into the binding depart ment and spent some time there watch ing the girls. There were hundreds of them, dressed in long blue coats and wide trousers, with bands of black silk over their oily black hair. They sat at tables. with their little deformed feet Just touch- ing the floor. They worked so busily that I remarked upon it. whereupon the man. ager, who acted as our guide. said:
 we pay them by piece work and they have no time to waste.'
 l asked as to their wages. The man re- piled:
 "Oh they are making much money. for them. Some of the best earn $7 Mexi- can per week. or about s in gold. The average workman is paid about s1.bo."
 These girls were stitching and sewing, folding and pasting, and also feeding the presses Their hours were about 12 per day. The department contained much modern machinery, and the work of bind ing was economically done.
 The Celestial Book Pirates.
 China has no copyright law. I found the Commercial Press stealing everything that its managers think of value for the new Chinese schools. No matter what the copyrights are. foreign authors must be content with the hope that their books may do good even though they do not add to their financial receipts As looked over the valumes printed by this conn pany for the new education found many