JAPANESE OF SEATTLE PUBLISH THREE DAILIES

LEARNING CASE IN JAPANESE IS NO SMALL JOB

Learning the "cases" for a Japanese printer is a colossal task, according to those who have made a study of the mechanical side of the newspaper publishing in that language. In English, the compositor learns twenty-six boxes for the lower case or small letters, while the upper case, or capitals, are arranged in alphabetical order. Japanese compositors have more than 2,000 separate characters with which to contend, and in publications where a wider range of vocabulary is desired, this number is often more than doubled. Under normal circumstances a boy apprenticed at the age of 15 should have a fair working idea of the cases by the time he is ready to retire.

This City, Headquarters of Nipponese Race in This Section, Home of Some Interesting Publications.

THEIR TYPOGRAPHY HAS ITS OWN PECULIARITIES

More Than Two Thousand Distinct Characters in Oriental Compositor's Case -- One for Each Separate Idea.

Linotype Not Adapted to Setting These Newspapers, and Reporters Have No Chance to Use Typewriter.

AUXILIARY ALPHABET IS SOMETIMES HANDY

Small Kani Type Employed Alongside Chinese Hieroglyphics by Way of Explaining What Is Intended.

How many readers of The Times know that daily newspapers are published in Seattle in the Japanese language?

Such is the case. Because of its commanding position in the Pacific Northwest as a commercial city, Seattle is also the headquarters for the Japanese of this section of the United States and three daily newspapers in the Nipponese tongue are published here. In addition, a score of weekly and monthly publications in that language reflect the life of the sons of Nippon in the home of their adoption.

Introducing our Oriental contemporaries: The North-American Times is a thriving daily edited and published by K.S. Arima, while the Great Northern Daily News is edited and published by K. Takeuchi. The third and youngest of the trio is the Asahi News published by K. Nishikata.

While not possessed of the equipment that makes The Times one of the leading newspapers of the United States and the possessor of a plant second to none, the Japanese dailies have modern offices of the type usually found in small cities and possess circulations that correspond. The North American Times boasts of 6,000 copies daily.

Linotype Not Workable.

Because of the peculiarities of the Japanese language, the linotype machine is an unknown quantity in the composing rooms. Even in the large offices in Tokyo and Yokohama, this Occidental invention is not used. The Japanese language is written in characters borrowed from the Chinese, and each word is represented by a separate character. Hence it is necessary to have as many individual types as there are words in the language. The "case" of a Japanese compositor contains more than 2,000 characters, and publications wishing to go into technical writings require several times that number.

The type cases of The North American Times have a trifle more than 2,000 characters each, a sufficient number for ordinary newspaper needs. They are arranged according to their meaning, although a small case of extra size is situated in the center of the large cases, containing 200 or more words most commonly in use.

"What do you do when you want to use a word for which you have no type?" was asked one of the editors of The North American Times, the other day.

"We use anther word," came the reply.

Sounds Simple Enough.

Simple. Isn't it? Just like Aryans when they don't know how to spell one in their own dear orthographically-insane tongue.

In the language of the composing room, all Japanese type has the same "face." The dark, bold Gothic and the find lined Roman are unknown. Imagine the room necessitated if type cases, needing boxes to the number 2,000 or more for each font, were installed containing the variations to which the Latin alphabet lends itself. A live newspaper would have to rent the Smith building in order to find room for its type.

Picture the editor telling the "copy chaser" to tell the foreman of the composing room to put that paragraph in bold face italics.

"Going up, forty-second floor," the printer yells to the elevator man, "that fat head in the front office wants this in italics."

"Why the italics aren't on the forty-second-floor," the elevator man would respond. "That's Casion condensed. They're down in the subbasement with the script and Early English. Going down, bold faced Gothic open faced Franklin, Italics and Niagara extended."

Taken the world over in Seattle, Japan, Mespotamia and Singapore, a newspaper office is a newspaper office and the variations are only in details. The reporters write their "copy" and hand it to the editors.

Typewriter Not Used.

Because of the peculiarities of the Japanese tongue already described, the reporters do not use typewriters as they do on The Times. They haven't manufactured any yet with 2,000 or manufactured any yet with 2,000 or more characters. The writers use pens or brushes on "copy paper" on which the lines are numbered and the paper so ruled that one character can be written in each square.

There, as on any other paper, the editor shows why he is editor by wielding the fabled blue pencil with a free and easy grace that marks him as a man of deep penetration. It might be said, en passant, that in Japanese as well as in American newspaper offices there's no such animal as a "blue" pencil. This figment of the imagination exist only in realistic stage productions where reporters carry note books and do other strange and wonderful things, such as getting names and addresses right and always scoring a "scoop" on the hated opposition, instead of having to come into the office with a convincing alibi to prove why the man working opposite them is the luckiest fellow alive.

Have Outside Correspondents.

In addition to covering Seattle, the Japanese newspapers published here have correspondents in all coast cities in which there is a Japanese population of appreciable size. The North American Times has representatives in Portland, San Francisco, Spokane, Vancouver and Los Angeles as well as having cable service daily from Tokyo containing dispatches that would prove of interest to the Japanese of this country.

While the greater part of the Japanese reporters are students, who have taken up the work to aid them in the pursuit of their studies, the editors are experienced men who formerly followed their profession in Japan.

"There is one feature about our language that few persons of occidental birth understand," explained A. Humano, a member of The North-American Times editorial staff. "This is our dual system of writing. While we use Chinese characters to indicate words, there is also a sort of alphabet composed of forty-nine syllables known as the 'kana.' Thus in printing a newspaper, when we use a word of character that would not be understood readily by the ineducated, small kani type is used to one side.

By Way Of Explanation.

It is as though an editorial writer had been writing learnedly on anthropomorphous apes and following the use of the word "anthropomorphous" he inclosed in parentheses the words 'manlike in shape' by way of explanation. It's a good idea and might be adopted with appreciated results by writers who are inclined to indulge in polysyllabic monstrosities just to see how many words of unusual length they are able to get into a single paragraph."

While devoting their attention largely to matters of sectional and racial interest, Seattle's Japanese dailies keep their readers posted on the more important happenings in the world at large. They are liberally patronized in the advertising field by Japanese merchants, and not a few of the big stores uptown also have display advertisements appearing in their columns.