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hardly up-to-date, as may be judged from the following notice which appeared in one of them:

‘The editors note with satisfaction the growing prosperity of their venture, and notify their subscribers that, in view of the increased labour and trouble entailed on them by their increasing circulation, the gracious subscribers will kindly spare them the trouble by sending for their copies, instead of having them delivered to them as before.’

The time arrived when the first daily newspaper of modern type in Japan was to be published. In 1871 the Mainichi made its appearance at Yokohama, and was afterwards transferred to Tokyo, where it still maintains an honourable position. This venture was soon followed in Tokyo by a number of new dailies, some of which now hold foremost places in the field of Japanese journalism. Among these are the Nichi-Nichi, the Hochi, the Nippon, and the Yomiuri Shimbun. In 1872 an Englishman named Black, who had done brilliant service under the new Imperial Government, started a daily paper, which was printed in the Japanese language. Himself a consummate master of the language, his paper, the Nisshin-Shinji-Shi, did much to help on the development of Japanese journalism. Unfortunately, the life of Black’s paper was only short, but it had accomplished its work. From that time on the growth and improvement of the Japanese press was rapid and steady, until at the present time there is to be found no town with over 10,000 inhabitants that does not have two or more newspapers. In 1899 the number of newspapers and magazines had mounted to 978, of which only half were devoted to political affairs and news, the others dealing with religion, literature, or science.

As is natural, Tokyo is the principal centre of journalism in Japan, and there are daily published something like thirty or forty newspapers. Of these, the most important are the Jiji, the Nichi-Nichi, the Kokumin, the Mainichi, the Yomiuri, the Chugai-Shogyo, and the Nippon. These papers consist of eight to sixteen pages, and contain editorial articles, general news, miscellaneous matter, and fiction. These leading papers have great political influence, and it is from their staffs that many politicians have arisen.

The people of Tokyo, like the Parisians, prefer to hear what is going on in their own town to hearing news of the outside world. They have a profound contempt for provincial matters, and although they publish dispatches from Osaka or other great towns, it is rather in a perfunctory way. The best energies of