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October 5, 1907.]
JUBILEE OF THE “HONGKONG DAILY PRESS."
1857-1907.
October 1st, 1907.
The Daily Press to-day attains its Jubilee, and by way of marking the interesting occasion we take pleasure in presenting to each subscri- ber a fac-simile copy of the first number of the paper, dated October 1st 1857. The
Daily Press was the first daily newspaper published in China, and we believe we are entitled to claim for the Chung Ngoi San Po (Chinese Daily Press) the distinction of being the pioneer Chinese newspaper. It commenced publication ou November 1st, 1857, and will therefore attain its jubilee a month hence. The Chinese paper was first published only three times a week, but the support given to the venture was 80 snenuraging that in due course of time it was issued daily.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
the blank parts were neatly cut away, and as the letters were left raised on the surface they were an exact representation of the manuscript.
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The first English newspaper published in China was the Cantm Register which made its appearance in 1827, and it is interesting
F
This method was an entire reversal of the old to recall the fact that it owed its foundation method, the letters now being printed black on largely to the interest taken in the saterprise a white surface. There were no presses in by Messrs. James and Alexander Matheson, China such as came into use in Europe. The at
that time connected with the firm of fastened on both ends of a stiok. With one Chinese printer worked with two brushes Magniac & Co. from whose ashes arose brush he inked the block, and after he had laid Messrs. Jardine Matheson & Co. Mr. James the Phoenix-like form of the princely house of the paper on the block he took the impression Matheson, who is represented in the biblio- by passing the other brash over the piper.graphy of the East by a book entitled British This system, continued down to the middle of Trade in China" is rep ited to have been the the nineteenth century when Chinese moveable metal types were first made by a firm of English tributor to the paper in its infancy has in a first editor of the paper, though a frequent coa- type founders. We may see the old system still book entitled “The Fankwei in China" east in ase, for printing those scarlet visiting considerable doubt on the satement and says cards (or papers) used by the Chinese on ceremonial occasions.
be only k ow as editor Mr. Wood,
14 son of the great tragedian who combined with the
However that may be, the fact is not disputed editorial work the technical duties of compositor. that the small hand-press on which the piper was printed was lent for the purpose by Mr. way, Alexander Matheson. This hand-press, by the was the second English press to be introduced into China. The first was intro- duced by the Honorable East India Company in 1814, and they brought out a printer to Caton Morrison's dictionary of the Chinese language, at the same time. On this press was printed his "Vocabulary of the Canton dialect" and his "Views of Chia." The press од which the Canton Register Was printed writer in 1833 remarked that there were then was brought out from England in 1825 A in his object however, for several copies of the only five English presses in China-two in work of Confucius and other eminent authore Macao and three in Canton-but as the first two times had changed. These were, of course Manu were successfully hidden and preserved until the presses, according to this authority arrived script Books. Before the invention of printing at Canton, it is to
in 1314 and 1825 and both were a vast number of meŋ must have been employed Maca0
be assumed that the newspapers which were issued in of printing by means in China copying books, and even the invention 1822 and 1821 were printed by methods allied of wooden blocks' | to the Chinese, The Canton Register was pub did
not apparently greatly diminish the lished weekly for upwards of twenty years. number. Down to within fifty years ago
valuable contributor to the paper up to the the Peking Gazette Was known to the time of his lamented death was R›bart Morrison, majority of its readers only as a daily manuscript. the pioneer Protestant mission sry and sinologue, Though the Gazette" is spoken of as the the centenary of whose arrival is being celebrat, oldest newspaper in the world, it is a newspaper only in a very limited sense.
ed this year, and whose valuable labours it is official medium of communicating the decreee The Register ran without a rival-the Chinese It is simply the hoped to commemorate by an osnotaph at Canton. of the Court at Peking, and until Chinese Repository scarcely comes in that catagory-for years avo, moveable metal type came into use, about sixty about three years, when the third press arrived majority of its readers only as a daily manu-
Gazette"
was known to the in Canton and the Canton Courier made its script. Very few impressions were taken in spirit of opposition survivel and in 1835 appearance. It died a premature death, but the Peking from the old wooden or waxen blocks. appeared the Canton Press. and these copies were distributed by imperial however, to pass over the Chinese Repository
We ought not couriers to the head officials in the provincial without a little further reference. crpitals. From the few copies that reached monthly publication and a very valuable oue in Canton or any other provincial capital many its day. For twenty years it couslitated a rich more were transcribed and the news circulated storehouse of inforastion with regard to the in various forms according to the wishes of history, geography, government and social life those who sought it. In their best style the and castoms not only of China bat of the manuscript in small octavo of about forty pages,
in the provinces formed a daily Asiatic countries generally.
bat in an inferior style they appeared only once in two days, and then did not contain more than fifteen or twenty pages.
long before the invention of printing the The interesting fact should be mentioned that
Chinese had "a vast number of books," hoang ti, a title signifying First Emperor, who Chi-
Yet another Daily Press publication is Christian era and whose name is imperishably |
reigned about two hundred years before the entitled to mention in this connection-the associated with the building of the Great Wail mail edition of the Daily Press. In the form of Peking, achieved infamy by ordering that all in which it was first published it was a bi-monthly books and writings of every description should summary of intelligence "whether political | be collected and burned by the magistrates ín commercial, shipping, or general, comprising: each district throughout the Empire. So strictly all market information and prices current from all the ports of China and Japan and also from
was this decrae carried out, that many literary Manila." It was known as the China Overland tempt to save valuable records. The tyrant, whose men were put to death for being detected in an at, Trade Report, a title which at once suggests its mischievous ambition had tempted him to com age, the word "Overland" carrying our refec-mit this sot of madness, did not entirely sucosed tions back to the days prior to the opening of the Suez Canal. Before 1869 the mails to Europe bad either to be taken by sea all the way round the Cape of Good Hope, or by sea to Suez thence "overland to Alexandria, where there was steamship connection with the prin- cipal ports of Europe. The latter was of course the quickest route, and the object of incorporat- ing the word “Overland' in the title was doubtless to empha.ise the fact that the "Summary" Was published for dispatch by the quickest route. When submarine cables brought the uttermost part of the earth into rapid communication with each other, and when the fast steamship began to supersede the sailing ship and regular communi tion with the various parts of the world cime to be established, trade conditions began to wear another aspect. Fortnightly trade reports and prices current cersed to have the same value, when by submarine cable the price of the hour was obtainable, and in course of time when a Weekly Mail service to Europe was established the mail edition of the Daily Press and the China Overland Trade Report were merged into one pablication under the present title of Hongkong Weekly Press and China Overland Trade Report.
Though the annual Chronicle and Directory published at the Daily Press Office cannot be associated in the celebration with the trio of publicstions already mentioned, it is
near enough to fifty years of age to justify mention in this connection. Glancing at the bookshelves and noting how the volume has expanded year by year since 1863 from a thin book of 200 pages to a portly tome of nearly 2,000 pages one may form on the instant some ides of the marvellous growth of foreign intercourse with China and other parts of Asia during the past half century.
THE HISTORY OF PRINTING IN CHINA.
Our concern to-day however, is with the Daily Press, and inasmuch as the art of printing is reputed to be a Chinese invention and Chins, moreover, has the distinction of possessing in the Peking Gazette a publication often alluded to as the oldest newspaper in the world, it may not be uninteresting to many readers if we preface our remarks on the birth of the Daily Press by a brief allusion to the history of printing in China, and follow it up with some reference to the publication of the earliest foreign newspapers,
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Gazette
the
It is remarkable that while almanacs, oslon dars and Provincial Court circulars, as well as the Peking Gazelle, had been in noiverssl use among the Chinese for centuries, there is no recorded evidence of any attempt to publish a newspaper for the expression of public sentiment or opinion, or to furnish information enlarging the sphere of knowledge, until within the last half-century when, as we have already mentioned, a begining was the publication of the Chinese Daily Press. made by
THE BARLIEST BUROPEAN NEWSPAPERS IN CHINA.
The earliest European newspapers issued in this part of the world were founded by Por tuguese residents at Mscso. In 182! Msoso possessed a weekly newspaper called 4 Abelha da China, and in 1834 another, the Gazette de Macao, made its appearancs. How many news- The art of printing began to be practiced in papers Macao may have had before these were China in the tenth century, A.D., about five published we have not the means of ascertaining hundred years before it was known in Europe. | bat it is not imp obable, considering what an The method first adopted was to engrave the important centre of international commerce characters on stone, so that when the impressions Mãoso was in the early part of the Ninteeath were taken the letters were white while the sur-Century, that a newspaper was published there rounding surface of the paper was black. This before 1822. It can certainly be said that sinos method was superseded by the invention of wooden that date many have had their day in the blocks. The copy, written on vary thin paper, Colony and oessed to be, and to-day the Colony was pasted on plain blooks of wood or wax. "All" does not possess eren one.
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it W.is
A
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The Canlon Pris followed the Courier to the limbɔ of unsuccessful enterprises, and thereafter osme The Friend of China. Its publishing office was on the 3rd site east of the Factory Creek' Hongkong to the British the Friend of China at Canton, but upon the cession of followed the bulk of its readers to the new Colony and continued its weekly publication here. In 1847 the weekly China Mail entered into rivalry with it as well as with the Canton Register and the Friend has long since departed and neither of Hongkong Register. The
the Registers we believed lived long enong the record its demise.
葛情
THE BIRTH OF THE DAILY PRESS.” By 1857 the Colony and its trade were developing at such a rate that the necessity or at least the usefulness of a daily news- paper began to be apparent; and October lat of that year Daily Prass, which, as we have already mention- saw the starting of the
ed enjoys the distinction of being the first, and therefore the oldest, daily newspaper published in the East. Poets dwelt in the lan l in those da x, and it is interesting to revsil now the following modest little apostrophe which appeared in the first ierus of the paper :-—---
Go Daily Press from this our solitude :
Wo
́e cast thee on the waters: go thy_ways; And if, as we believe, thy vein be good.
The world shall find then after masny days, To-day the world fads the Daily Press justifying the prophecy by celebrating ita