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THE OLDEST NEWSPAPER
Peking Gazette Was Started Twelve
Hundred Years Ago.
The oldest newspaper in the world is the
Ching Pao, or Official Gazette, of China.
Its exact age is not know, but the first
reference to it in Chinese history is found
in the records of the reign of K'ai-Yuan,
of the T'ang Dynasty. A. D. 718-41. It had
undoubtedly existed for some time previous
to this date and has been published regularly
ever since.

The Ching Pao is a sort of Court Circular,
containing also official decress and
royal proclamations. It appears from several
offices under several different names,
owing to the right of certain persons to
copy and sell it. There is also a manuscript
copy, issued to subscribers one day
earlier than the regular edition.

This remarkable newspaper, in all its
editions, is as different from modern American
dalies as could well be. Its 30 or 40
pages are only three to six inches wide
and about eight inches deep. It has no
advertisements, no pictures and no heading.
The lines run from top to bottom,
and the front is where our back is. The
pages have a wide margin at the top and
bottom, but none on the sides. The curious
and very wonderful Chinese characters
seem to be as perfect in the copy that
was written by hand as in the printed
editions, and one marvels how one man
could produce a single number in a week,
much less a single night. There are many
thousand different Chinese characters, for
it is a modification of an ancient picture
writing somewhat like the bieroglyphics of
the Egyptians, so that learnng one' A. B.
C.'s in China is a matter of years of study.

In Chinese writing, as in English, there
is a printed kind of type letter and a flowing
script for rapid writing, but the two
kinds look to an American like two distinct
systems, each one of which would
fill a book. It is notable that the manuscript
edition of the Ching Pao is not in
the quicker flowing script, but in the printed
form, with its inticate crossing lines
of definite length, place an curve.

The printed copies of the oldest newspaper
are bound in a near paper cover and
stitched with tissue-paper thread, which is
thin as tissue, but so tough that when
twisted into a thin twine a wisp of it will
hold a man's weight.