TYPE-SETTING IN JAPAN.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2107, 9 January 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

TYPE-SETTING IN JAPAN.

The advantages of alphabetic writing are nowhere more conspicuously shown than in a largo printing office. The compositor stands within easy reach of every character he may have need of, and a boy can learn the position of each in the cast in a tew hours. It is quite another nmt ter where eacli word lus a distinct character, as in China and Japan. A correspondent, descnbing the office of a Japan eae paper, says that a full fount of Japauese type comprises 7000 charactets, of which 3000 are in constant use, and for 2000 more there are frequent calls. The type is disposed about the composing-rr-om on racks, like those in a reading room, and the compositors wander up and down the aisles, setting type and taking exercise at once. With so many cbarac ters it is no wonder that Japanese proofreaders have to be men of intelligence and high scholarship. The impossibility of telegraphing single-character words has kept this great instrument of civilisation in foreign hands, and made it practically useless for the natives of China and Japtn. To these the telephone is an. especial blessing, which they are not slow to appreciate.

A Parishioner ankod his pastor the meaning of thin line of Scripture : "He was clothed with nurses as with a garment." " It Mgnifiies," replied the divine " that the individual had a habit of • wearing 1 ."