foreign; the Yomi-uri and the Mainichi, progressionist; the Jiji Shimpo, independent; the Nichi Nichi, generally regarded as an organ of Baron Itō; the Chugwai Shogyō Shimpo, commercial. The Asahi, the Miyako, the Chuō, and the Hōchi enjoy great popularity, as does also the Yorozu Chōhō, whose exaggerations and violent personalities amuse all readers except such as are the objects of them. No one is safe nowadays from black-mail. The largest circulation (200,000 copies) is claimed by the Yorozu Chōhō, the Ōsaka Asahi coming next with 150,000. Some few papers have an English column. The Japan Times is published entirely in English. Among the magazines, the Taiyō is perhaps that which enjoys the greatest vogue with general readers all over the country; pure literature is represented by the Teikoku Bungaku and two or three others; red-hot chauvinism by the Nihon-jin; Christianity by the Rikugō Zasshi and several others, and satire and humour by the Maru-Maru Chimbun, or Japanese "Punch," while medicine, chemistry, anthropology, philology, political economy, and other sciences all have their organs, some of them conducted with great ability and a closeness to European models which is almost startling. The names of Shimada, Tokutomi, Kuga, and Asaina may be mentioned among those of the leading Tōkyō journalists.
Newspapers, like books, are published in what is called the "Written Language,"—a literary dialect considerably removed from the colloquial both in grammar and in vocabulary, the simple plan of writing as one speaks not having yet approved itself to the taste of any Far-Eastern nation. But though the style of Japanese newspapers is not popular, their prices are. Most of the larger journals charge only two sen about a halfpenny for a single copy, and from thirty-five to fifty sen per month; the smaller journals, one and a half sen for a single copy, and twenty or thirty sen per month. Several have rough illustrations. Most now have feuilletons devoted to the publication of novels in serial form. Extras are issued whenever any notable event occurs. During a change of ministry, for instance, and especially in war time,
