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weekly edition. In 1890 a company was formed to take over from Mr. Clark, who was then the sole proprietor, the Shanghai Mercury and Celestial Empire, together with
the large and growing jobbing business carried on in connection with the papers.
MR. JOHN D. CLARK, M.J.L.,
editor-in-
chief of the Shanghai Mercury and of the Celestial Empire, was born on August 12, 1842, and was educated privately and at Norwich He joined the Royal Navy 1861,
Grammar School,
and came to the Far East in being
THE PRINTING ROOMS.
Mr. Clark, however. continued, as managing director, to control and manage the business. At the present day the Mercury is a _ ten-
J. D. CLARK, M.J.L.,
Managing Director and Editor.
page evening journal, with a wide circu- lation and considerable influence in the pro- motion of the general welfare. In policy the Mercury is Conservative, but it is not bound to any home political party ; the good of Shanghai and the welfare of its residents being the first article of its creed, and the advancement of British interests in the Far East, the next.
present at the actions of Shimonoseki and Kagoshima. He left the service in 1865. In 1873 and 1874 he helped to establish the Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, and, coming to Shanghai in 1875, he set up in business as a broker and general merchant. In 1879 he established the Mercury, and he has been chiefly responsible for its continued success. His publications include “ Formosa,” and “ Sketches in and around Shanghai,” &c. He is a member of the Masonic and Shanghai Clubs, and of the Constitutional Club, London. At present Mr. Clark is on leave.
R. D. NEISH, Assistant Editor.
TWENTIETH CENTURY IMPRESSIONS OF HONGKONG, SHANGHAT, ETC.
The Shanghai Times.
The Shanghai Times was founded in the spring of 1901 by Frank P. Ball, at that time “taipan” in Shanghai of the American Trading Company. Realising that there was no newspaper in the Far East, outside Manila, devoted to the adequate representation of American interests, Mr. Ball conceived that the establishment of a journal with such a purpose was likely to prove a commercial success, as well as being of service politically to the United States, and to this end he entered into an arrangement with two pro- fessional journalists, namely, Mr. Tom Cowen, an Englishman, since deceased, and Mr. W. N. Swarthont, an American, who had previously been associated together in the establishment of the Manila Times at the Philippines capital. Mr. Cowen was a jour- nalist of proved ability. During the early nineties he . had been sub-editor of the Hongkong Telegraph under the well-known Mr. Frazer-Smith, founder and editor of that paper. Later on he had experience in Shanghai and. Japan, after which he went to Manila and became. interested with Mr. Swarthont in the Zimes there. He died in Japan in 1906. One of his brothers is Mr. John Cowen managing director and editor of the China Yimes, Tientsin.
Mr. Swarthont, an old ex-soldier of the American Army in Manila, was a practical printer of great experience and ability. Under the arrangement with Mr. F. P. Ball he and Mr. Cowen were to be joint editors of the Shanghai Times, in which each had a small monetary interest. .
The first premises occupied by the paper were situated in Nanking Road, over the well- known jewellery shop belonging to Mr. Hung Chong. The original “make-up” of the journal was on the American model, that is to say, the front page was given up to news, and no advertisements were permitted to appear there under any conditions. Shanghai, however, had always been accustomed to seeing advertisements on the front pages of its daily newspapers, and, finding that ad- vertisers were not willing to fall in with the new plan, the proprietors of the Times were obliged before long to bow to the dictates of “old custom” and do as their contempo- raries did—that is, put their advertisements practically where and in what manner their patrons wished.
The Shanghai Times had not been running for many weeks when it became involved in a disastrous libel suit. Mr. Henry O’Shea, editor and proprietor of the China Gazette, brought an action against Mr. Cowen, as editor and part proprietor of the Times, for libel on account of an article, of which Mr. Cowen was the author, and which appeared in the Shanghai Times identifying Mr. O'Shea with the notorious but mysterious “ Shanghai Liar,” who had invented the story of the capture of the Legations in Peking by the Boxers and the boiling alive in oil of every foreign man, woman, and child in that capital. The fiction appeared in several London and New York papers, and memorial services were actually held in St. Paul’s and other churches, for the victims. Mr. O'Shea re- covered damages against Mr. Cowen, which, however, were never fully discharged, and there can be no doubt that the result of the trial was a serious “ set-back” to the Shanghai Times. Mr. O'Shea also had a subsequent suit against his lawyers, Messrs. Browett and Ellis, whose bill he declined to pay on the ground that it was extortionate and that counsel had not obeyed his instructions with regard to the prosecution of the suit against
