ppetites of this kind are in need of having them perennially
gratified, and accordingly it naturally comes about that the
conductors of journals such as I have referred to, if they cannot
provide a sufficient quantity of sensationalism true or partly true,
have either to invent it or exaggerate some perhaps innocent or
innocuous incident. I am sorry to say that yellow journalism is not
only not unknown in Japan, but is apparently in a very flourishing
condition there. I regret the fact all the more because the people of
Japan are not yet sufficiently educated or enlightened to receive what
they read in the newspaper in a sceptical spirit. That educational and
enlightening process is only effected by a long course of newspaper
reading. Even in this country we can remember the time when any
statement was implicitly believed because it was "in the papers." Now
some other and better evidence of the truth of any report is needed
than the publication thereof in a newspaper. Young Japan will no doubt
ere long assimilate this fact, and when it does the yellow press of
Japan will probably find its _clientele_ a diminishing quantity. I
hope my readers will not deduce from these remarks that I entertain,
on the whole, a poor opinion of the native press of Japan. Considering
the difficulties it has had to contend with, I consider that the
progress it has made during the comparatively few years it has been
in existence is as wonderful as anything in the country. And I am
furthermore of opinion that the influence it exercises is, on the
whole, a healthy one. It has done a great work in the education of the
mass of the Japanese people in the direction of taking a broader view
of life and teaching them that there is a world outside their own
particular locality and beyond their own country. And while referring
to the newspaper press I may also give a meed of praise to the large
number of journals and magazines of a literary, scientific, and
religious nature. The effect of these ably conducted periodicals as an
educational influence must be immense. The number of them is gradually
growing, and the support rendered to them serves to show, were any
proof needed, how profoundly interested the Japan of to-day is in all
those questions, whether political, scientific, religious, or
literary, which are not the possession of or the subject of discussion
among any particular nation but are exercising the minds and
consciences of the civilised wor