The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1912-11-30
newspapers FROM
| FOREIGN LANDS. IA! Is.
Oddities of Foreign Pres ril IS
pecially for The Sea 1.oass hct,o
Prof. Willie Graft, Principal OF
Waveland City Schools.

Just received from the Chamberlain
Medicine Co., of Des Moines, Iowa, a
large package of foreign newspapers,
given by that company for the benefit
of the Waveland public school library.
AS am under the impression that they
will be very interesting and instructive
to both teachers and pupils, will give
here brief description for the benefit
of The Sea Coast Echo readers
Some of the papers bear names of
places which require one to recall for
gotten geography or refer to the atlas
to locate. Some of them are particu-
larly curious, as they are published in
the vernacular or native languages,
which might be likened to the carefully
written notes of a shorthand writer.
| Here are the well-known Chinese char
| acters arranged in vertical lines read
ing from top to bottom, the lines ar
ranged from right to left.
The Burmese language, as printed, is
composed principally of a combination
OF circles. Chingalese, the language of
Ceylon, is also curvilinear. Jayanese
and Siamese are composed largely of
vertical lines connected by loops at
either top or bottom, but rarely at both.
These languages bear tome resem-
blance to the vertical writing now prac-
ticed in our public schools.
! 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 imagine it would
be impossible to reduce it to the nova
BILE type form. The Oudh Akhbar. a
sixteen-page daily, published at Luck
now in this language. claims cireula-
tion of about 5000. 1t is said, in order
to handle this circulation, it requires an
Office force of about 200. Fortunately
for the managers, the wages paid to ma
tives are only few cents day.
The Chamberlain Medicine Co. adyer-
tise in 30 of these papers. Here are
the names Of d few Z assI4 Dutch,
German, Hawaiian, Samoan, Tagalog
philippine Islands), Kaffir, Zulu and
Basuto, of South Africa.
It's difficult to conceive how the read
ers OF some of the papers manage to
handle them. Imagine man on a
crowded street car trying to read a
paper whose pages are thirty eight
inches long and twenty nine inches
wide. This is the size of the "Hita-
dabi", Bengali weekly published in
Calcutta, India. Some Of the English
dailies published in South Africa are
almost as unwieldy, th cir pages meas
uring twenty-seven inches in length
and twentyfi five inches in width. To an
up-to-date American newspaper man
is interesting to note the manner in
which the colonial English newspapers
are made up. They still cling to the
methods which were practiced in this
country fifty years ago, the advertise
ments being upon the first few pages,
followed generally by heavy editorials,
then few meager cable and telegraphic
items, afterwards the local news. The
local news consists principally of the
proceedings of the legislative bodies,
town council, school board, etc., and
contributions by the readers are nu-
merous and lengthy. The editorials
are generally of a more dignified and
serious nature than American produc-
tions. The daily papers devote more
space to book reviews and detailed re-
ports of scientific progress than Ameri-
can newspapers do. HumorN is not so
noticeable, and cartoons are used more
rarely than with us.
! Very few, if any, of the Colonial pa
pers issue "pink Sheet, but they
supply this omission by devoting a
large proportion of every issue to the
sporting news. This is especially no.
ticeable in the African papers.
| With few exceptions, the advertising
pages would give our "ad" writer's the
nightmare. They seem to have little
conception of the value of space, or OF
attractive methods of presenting either
the text or the illustrations. A pleas
ant relief to this monotony is afforded
by the lads" of American advertisers,
which are rather. numerous on their
pages