Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/111

 since restrictions were entirely removed, and although there are now 829 journals and periodicals published throughout the Empire with a total annual circulation of 463,000,000 copies, intemperance such as in former times would have provoked official interference, is seldom displayed to-day.

The quality of journalistic writing in Japan is marred by extreme and pedantic classicism. There has not yet been any real escape from the trammels of a tradition which assigned the crown of scholarship to whatever author drew most largely upon the resources of the Chinese language. A pernicious example in this respect is set by the Imperial Court. The sovereign, whether he speaks by rescript or by edict, never addresses the bulk of his subjects. His words are taken from sources so classical as to be intelligible only to the highly educated minority. Several of the newspapers affect a similar style. They sacrifice their audience to their erudition, and prefer classicism to circulation. Their columns are a sealed book to the whole of the lower middle classes and to the entire female population. Under any circumstances Japan labours under the terrible disadvantage of having a written language much more difficult to understand than her spoken language, and these journals seem bent upon making her misfortune as painful as possible. Others, taking a more rational view of the purposes of journalism, aim with success at simplicity and