The "Japan Times and Mail" has been reading the Japanese newspapers a lesson in etiquette. It seems that a station master had made some inexcusably careless and inaccurate statements in connexion with a railway suicide. and the '"'/7ji"" jumped on him. Wherefor the "Japan Times'' \compliments the "/iji" and continues thus But we wonder if the editor of the "Jiji" has never had occasion to measure the injustice done to the public day after day throughout the year by the newspaperdom of this country!
In too many instances, liberty and licence become almost synonymous with our vernacular press. The presumption of innocence until proven guilty is most rigidly observed in the civilized countries and in their press, but here it is to the contrary.
Supposing, for instance, that a man was subpenaed to appear before a public procurator, there is no guarantee that he is not pictured in the vernacular papers as being involved or implicated in a scandal or a murder case, or what not. Only recently one of the most repvtable bankers of Tokio was reported to be involved in a fraudulent act, and afterwards it was proved that there was not a grain of truth in the story.
Was the report retracted and apologized for by the paper? No; nothing of the kind!
The banker placed a large notice in the paper denying the report—for which he had to pay at space rates. All corrections and retractions here are generally and intentionally printed in small
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.