Printing in China

1895

Shun Pao, Shanghai Daily, Has Eight Pages of Thin Rice Paper.

Shanghai is China's chief port and contains about 400,000 inhabitants, who are under native rule, and the English, American and French "settlements," with 250,000 Chinese and 5,000 foreigners, all of whom are under foreign rule.

In that city tremendous congregations gather in the mission churches, and there are to be found the largest Sunday schools in China. In Shanghai is also the largest mission press in the world. More than 1,000 Chinese converts are connected with the different missions.

In the mission press electrotyping and stereotyping are done, and over 35,000,000 pages are issued annually.

The Shun Pao is the best paying and most widely circulated of the three native newspaper dailies of Shanghai. It is an eight page sheet, printed on the thinnest of rice paper. It is so light that it does not weigh more than a man's handkerchief and so thin that the paper can be printed on one side only.

The paper goes to press in big sheets, which are so folded that the blank side is turned inward when taken in hand by the subscriber, and so that there is neither cutting nor pasting. Owing to the thinness of the paper it has a greasy, yellow appearance, and it is printed so closely with Chinese type that not an inch seems to be wasted.

The headline or title of the paper consists of two Chinese characters, taking up a space not wider than one of the columns of our newspapers and not more than an inch in length.

Its price is 10 cash, which, allowing for the difference in currency, makes it equivalent to half a cent in our money. — Philadelphia Press.