Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/112

 intelligibility, and thus not only reach an extended circle of readers, but also are hastening incidentally the advent of great reform, the assimilation of the written and spoken languages, which will probably prelude that still greater desideratum, abolition of the ideographic script. Apart from this pedantic defect, the best Japanese editors have caught, with remarkable aptitude, the spirit of modern journalism. Twenty-five years ago, they used to compile laborious essays, the construction involved, the ideas trivial, the inspiration drawn from Occidental text-books, and the alien character of the source hidden under a veneer of Chinese aphorisms. To-day, they write terse, succinct, closely reasoned articles, seldom diffuse, often witty, and generally free from extravagance of thought or diction. Yet, with few exceptions, the profession of journalism is not remunerative. Very low rates of subscription and almost prohibitorily high charges for advertising are chiefly to blame. The vicissitudes of the enterprise may be gathered from the facts that whereas 2,767 journals and periodicals were newly started between 1889 and 1894 (inclusive), no less than 2,465 ceased publishing. The largest circulation at present recorded is about thirty thousand copies daily.

The flagrant blemish of Japanese journalism is recklessness in attacking private reputations. No one is safe, not even a lady. Villanous and