When the managing editor of a Chinese daily reaches his office, at four o'clock in the afternoon, he has perhaps less trouble than foreigners in that station, but quite enough to interfere with the placid enjoyment of the cup of tea that awaits him, and to make him wish that his superior talent had been employed in some line less bothersome. He has no occasion to look over misprints of type or matter crowded out or omitted, on any account, for he has himself been on duty until six o'clock in the morning, and knows every tooth point of the night's harrow; but he must reckon with his contemporaries, which give him concern that he feels to be ill compensated by a salary equivalent to one gold dollar per day.

He is to the chief editor, who flashes off ideas that he is expected to phrase into the leading article; and to the proprietor, who moves in high society and has diversified political, commercial, and social interests, which must be respected in every line of the paper, and who is never pleased unless he has not only all the news that others print, but some striking feature besides. If the paper falls short of the expectations of the chief editor or the proprietor, the managing editor is fined from a day's to a week's pay. Consequently he holds the office force—the correspondents and the reporters—to strict account, and altogether the counting room derives quites an income from fines, and all hands manage to keep fairly deep in debt.

There is thus much to do daily in every office in seeing what other papers have been about and in noting effects. The excitement which attends this ordeal keeps the two cooks and four servants each office employs busy making and serving tea. At nine o'clock in the evening the round occurs, when fates are distributed and the preparation of copy begins for the next issue. Half an hour later teacups on every desk stimulate the tiny paint brushes that record the day's events and impressions.

Long before this time, naturally, a great amount of work has been done. While those in authority are arranging fines, the field outside must be thoroughly covered. This requires the utmost vigilance, for reporters and correspondents are held for the territory assigned to them, and they must keep alert to get all that happens in it. It will not do for a reporter to reside away from the district of his labor, for he must watch that district until the paper goes to press, and he takes chances with his position if he slips to bed before daylight. It is also necessary for him to be up early, so that he shall miss none of the morning happenings.

Being quite as nerveless as others of his race, and having no possessions worth mentioning except those on his back, it seems a waste of money for a Chinese reporter to hire lodgings. He may sleep when and where leisure and convenience suit, and eat promiscuously. A weekly visit to the barber provides all his toilet requirements. If he has lodgings and tries natural rest, he must engage some one to rouse him if anything occurs needing his attention, and his pay of from eighteen to twenty-one Mexican dollars per month, less fines, the net average return per man certainly not exceeding two gold dollars per week, does not enable him to indulge in luxuries for personal service.

As in many other things, experience is not so bad as theory. Luckily for reporters, the native habit of retiring early and sleeping until morning is generally observed. If a reporter sleep near a fire alarm that will be sure to awaken him, he may take chances, and feel that the occasional fines for missing other late news bring the cost of regular rest to him about as cheap as it can be bought.

In Shanghai there are six daily native papers and one weekly. The local departments to be covered engage four reporters of the native city, one for the mixed court, and one each for the French, English, and American settlements. In the native city, one man looks after the movements of the taotai at news at his yamen, one after the yamens of inferior officials, and two watch for police and general news.

Every man is expected to become proficient in speed and condensation. He should learn how to write characters that express much in little, for the paper is not elastic, and the local field cannot have more than three thousand characters out of the eight thousand that compose the reading matter of the paper. Advertisements fill about three-fourths of each edition. A man is considered fast and No. I otherwise who can write a striking and graphic story in one hundred characters or less at the rate of five characters per minute. It is hard to conceive a piece of news worth more space, according to accepted local nations.

If a man is deficient in terse expression, the talented readers who handle his copy are expected to boil him down. Including the managing editor, there are eight readers, who must look after proofs, each of whom is charged with the proper adjustment and placing of all the reading matter that comes to him as copy. This fixes responsibility beyond question for every line in the paper. These eight men oversee correspondence and general news, as well as the local field.

Each paper has about twenty correspondents scattered over the country. A correspondent needs to have always about him not only his wits, but a code book, filled with characters, each of which stands for four when written out. Nothing may be sent by wire except in code, and a query must precede the dispatch.

If a correspondent at Sianfu should hear at four o'clock in the morning that the Empress had died, he must get out his code and ask the office if it will take the story. Unless he gets a reply ordering what he shall do, he is not privileged to send more under penalty of losing his billet, although he may be sure that the paper will wish as many details as it can get, and that the time for going to press will arrive quite as soon as he can file anything at the telegraph office, even should he prepare his code dis patch while awaiting an order from the office. The rule governing dispatches is inflexible. It is made to be obeyed, and in no office does it admit of exception.

A Chinese compositor cannot stand at his case and, remaining in erect posture, pick up type, as in a foreign office. He needs both arms and legs, a good stooping back, and, if the editor's vocabulary is specially rich, a step-ladder. There must be a pocket for every character, and as ordinary newspaper uses require about four thousand characters, one compositor needs almost enough room to live in. It is a mark of distinction to employ unusual characters. Every paper likes to appear learned. There are editors who seem to employ their leisure in devising combinations which, while original and distinctive, shall yet be self-explanatory.

As no merchant could anticipate or supply such demands, every office contains its own foundry. Two men attend to this. One of them keeps busy making steel dies, and the other melts an stamps out the type. The compositors make new pockets for all creations. It behooves them to burnish their memories frequently, or they may be hours in setting up a single article, which would never do. As the types are of soft lead and easily worn, one man has his hands full in sharpening their lines by picking out the ink that they gather, or in filing down the inequalities that are always appearing. When a type becomes worthless it is thrown into the pot, to be melted over for a fresh stamp.

There are a dozen men in the composing room, including the typemakers and repairers. As many more work in the press room. That work needs infinite care, for exceedingly thin paper is used, and it is necessary to watch every impression. In order that the pressmen may get themselves in trim for the crucial test of producing the main issue, they are set at work on early editions by ten o'clock in the evening.

Whenever a few columns of fresh matter are ready, the presses are stopped until the forms can be changed. Two papers of the same date may thus appear vastly different, and as the circulation is wholly local, it may happen that neighbors, subscribers to the same paper, may exchange sheets and get double reading. Early press work is necessary to the issue by daylight of a new thousand copies.

The publication office employs four men who attend to the folding of the paper, its distribution among carriers, sales over the counter, and to the advertising. The item of advertising is arranged mainly by compradores, who place yearly contracts. The transient advertisement costs five cash per character, equivalent in American money to five sixteenths of one cent, and single copies of the paper sell at twelve cash. Newspaper quarters are usually as good as the average business place. They have well polished teak desks, electric lights, comfortable chairs, and numberless small conveniences that may be found in well-appointed foreign offices.

An office is never closed. Some one has work to do there at every hour of the day. Native work means seven days a week. At the Chinese New Year, the newspaper business, like every other that is Chinese shuts down for a week. Nothing could possibly happen to induce a newspaper to get out an extra at that time. On all other days the paper must be issued, and every person connected with it must be on duty. If there is a funeral, a wedding, sickness, or if on any account one wishes to remain away from the office, he is expected to provide a substitute to look after his department, subject to his hours and fines, and for such pay as may be agreed upon.

Literally rendered into English, the names of the local native dailies are New Hear, Shanghai Paper, Chinese Foreign-Chinese News, Same News, Soochow News, and Chinese-Foreign Evening News. The issues generally justify their titles. They have foreign press service which enables them to print enough outside matter to keep their readers informed on events of real importance, and they miss nothing of immediate concern to their people. In statements of fact they are usually most accurate, and the limited space at their command shuts off writing for effect and makes a newspaper a terse index of a day's record.

The papers printed for foreigners here, with one exception, are not nearly as good as straight news chroniclers. One may often read in a local English paper that something has occurred of which an account will appear in a subsequent issue. That would not be tolerated in a native office, which prints on time or lets a subject alone. Most of the foreign papers look to the native ones for Chinese news, and some of them are as apt to print it without credit as original with it, although it is special service to the native papers and paid for as such.

The Chinese may not know much about newspaper ethics, but what they print is their own, bought with coin of the realm. They do not wait for others to gather news, and then palm it off as the product of their own enterprise.

Frederick W. Eddy.
Special Correspondent for the Boston Herald.