Newspapers, as the term is understood in the West, did not exist in old Japan, though block-printed leaflets were occasionally issued to describe some specially stirring event. Yet the Japanese were not entirely unacquainted with journalism. During the last decades of the factory at Deshima the Dutch traders made it a yearly custom to submit to the governor of Nagasaki selected extracts from newspapers arriving from Batavia, and these extracts, having been translated into Japanese, were forwarded to the court in Yedo together with their originals. To such compilations the name of _Oranda fusetsu-sho (Dutch Reports)_ was given. Immediately after the conclusion of the first treaty in 1857, the Yedo authorities instructed the office for studying foreign books _(Bunsho torishirabe-dokoro)_ to translate excerpts from European and American journals. Occasionally these translations were copied for circulation among officials, but the bulk of the people knew nothing of them. Thus the first real newspaper did not see the light until 1861, when a Yedo publisher brought out the _Batavia News_, a compilation of items from foreign newspapers, printed on Japanese paper from wooden blocks. Entirely devoid of local interest, this journal did not survive for more than a few months. It was followed, in 1864, by the _Shimbun-shi (News)_, which was published in Yokohama, with Kishida Ginko for editor and John Hiko for sub-editor. The latter had been cast away, many years previously, on the coast of the United States and had become a naturalized American citizen. He retained a knowledge of spoken Japanese, but the ideographic script was a sealed book to him, and his editorial part was limited to oral translations from American journals which the editor committed to writing. The _Shimbun-shi_ essayed to collect domestic news as well as foreign. It was published twice a month and might possibly have created a demand for its wares had not the editor and sub-editor left for America after the issue of the 10th number. The example, however, had now been set. During the three years that separated the death of the _Shimbun-shi_ from the birth of the Meiji era (October 1867) no less than ten quasi-journals made their appearance. They were in fact nothing better than inferior magazines, printed from wood-blocks, issued weekly or monthly, and giving little evidence of enterprise or intellect, though connected with them were the names of men destined to become famous in the world of literature, as Fukuchi Genichiro, Tsuji Shinji (afterwards Baron Tsuji) and Suzuki Yuichi. These publications attracted little interest and exercised no influence. Journalism was regarded as a mere pastime. The first evidence of its potentialities was furnished by the _Koko Shimbun (The World)_ under the editorship of Fukuchi Genichiro and Sasano Dempei.