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established reputation, their announcement—which was really a big scoop—attracted absolutely no notice whatever.

As to their circulation, our newspapers fall far behind their foreign contemporaries. The sensational papers, as is the case in every country, sell better than their sober and respectable neighbours. Of these journals, the Niroku, which undoubtedly printed the largest number of copies, claimed a daily circulation of over 150,000; while the Yorodzu, since the suppression of the Niroku the most popular paper of the same class, issues probably 120,000 copies every morning. The others fall far below them. Few newspapers of the respectable class claim, with two exceptions, a circulation of much over 30,000 at most. The average, I believe, is somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000. The exceptions I have named are the two leading papers in Osaka, one having a daily circulation of 150,000, and the other a little over 100,000. In political influence they do not compare with the great dailies of Tokyo. But they stand at the head of journalism in Japan from a business point of view, partly owing to good management, but principally because of the splendid facilities which the unique geographical situation and the long-established business connections of Osaka afford to these papers for getting hold of the most populous and best-developed parts of the empire.

There have been established in Tokyo eight news-agencies, very similar to those in existence in London to-day. The business of these is to supply news to the newspapers. So assiduous are these agencies that it would be possible to start a newspaper in Tokyo without any editorial staff or reporters, and fill the pages with news-agency copy. This agency news is found mostly in the larger papers, there being very little room to spare in the small sheets of the Yellow Press. For instance, the Yorodzu consists of four pages, the last being filled with advertisements. The first page contains a few editorials, some poetry, and an instalment of a novel, also some advertisements. The second page consists of financial, economic, and general news, with special political news. The third page is filled with interesting, smartly-written articles, dealing with items of human interest often collected in the police-court. It was the Yorodzu which first introduced Dumas to the newspaper readers of Japan, to the despair of the rest of the Yellow Press, who could not find anything so attractive to run. But although the yellow journals have a great sale, they do not have any great weight, save among the lowest classes. This task of moulding public opinion is reserved to the larger papers. As has been said before, many statesmen and leaders in the political world have passed from the training-ground of the newspaper-office to official and Parliamentary life.