has it come to be reckoned among the probable incidents of a journalistic career that most papers employ what is called "a prison editor," that is, a man who, though nominally editor-in-chief, has little or nothing to do but go to prison when the paper gets into trouble. The real editor, meanwhile, remains an uncrowned king, figuring on the books simply as a contributor. In fact, the traditional Japanese fondness for dual offices has cropped up again in modern guise. Formerly there was an Emperor de jure and an Emperor de facto, there were nominal Daimyōs and the Daimyōs right-hand men with whom lay all the actual power. Now there are real editors and dummy "prison editors." But much practice has made ready writers. Recourse to allegory, double entente, and other ingenious devices for conveying "more than meets the ear," generally suffices to keep Japanese journalists on the safe side of the law. Taking one thing with another, it seems surprising that any man of ability should be tempted to enter the journalistic profession in Japan. The highest remuneration given barely exceeds £120 a year; but only some half-dozen individuals in the empire succeed in climbing to that giddy height. From £30 to £50 a year is the usual pay.
The foreign press at the "Open Ports" is principally in English hands. The newspapers there published are rendered more interesting than the majority of colonial journals by the constant and striking changes in Japanese politics and social life that have to be chronicled. Think what a paradise for the journal ist must a country be where the administrative organisation has been recast a dozen times in less than three dozen years, and everything else revolves in similar kaleidoscopic fashion! But this paradise has its drawbacks. Fancy-free till the year 1899, the foreign press in Japan saw itself thenceforward subjected, as a consequence of the abandonment of treaty privileges, to the same disabilities as are imposed on native printed speech. This reactionary step had been eagerly awaited by the Japanese news paper men, who, though crying out for more liberty themselves, chuckled at the prospect of seeing their foreign brethren become
