The English-language Newspaper scene, 1930s

The most influential newspaper in China - indeed over a large area of the Far East, including Hong Kong - was the North-China Daily News. Peyton-Griffin insisted on the hyphen in the title. This morning newspaper had grown from the old weekly North-China Herald, which was still published as the weekly edition of the daily paper, and its circulation - though small compared with the British nationals - was proof of its far-reaching influence not only in China but in London, Washington, Paris, Tokyo and other centres of government at a time of explosive delicacy in international relations. The paper - and its many publishing enterprises - was owned by the Morriss family, British Catholics of Jewish descent. There were three brothers, Henry (Harry), Gordon and Hailey. The eldest, Harry, had his office on the second floor of the newspaper building and he was in supreme control of the company. Gordon, whose stock-broking firm, Lester, Johnson and Morriss, was situated in the Japanese bank building next door, also took a keen directorial interest in the newspaper. Hailey, alas, remained in England where he had blotted the family copy-book by a long series of sexual escapades that had taken him to court, to prison and to prominence in the News of the World. ...

We had rivals the chief of which was the Shanghai Times, owned by a Briton, Nottingham, who was supported by Japanese money. ...

There was one large-circulation evening newspaper, the Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury, a copy of which had proved to be inadequate as cap-padding towards the end of my inglorious Army career. Its editor-publisher was Randall Gould, outspokenly anti-Japanese.

Fearless, also, were two other Americans, J. B. Powell, editor and publisher of the China Weekly Review, and broadcaster Carroll Alcott. Powell was anti-Japanese and pro-Chinese. Week after week, he printed eye-witness accounts of Japanese atrocities against the Chinese, of the mass murder of Chiang Kai-shek's soldiers. Alas, Powell, the brave American, later tasted the savagery of the Japanese, who settled old scores with inhuman brutality. Luckier was Alcott, who had left the China Press to become a news broadcaster and commentator over the American-owned radio station, XMHA.

Publishing in English as I found out on the North-China Daily News had its hazards. The printing staff were almost entirely Chinese. Thus the linotype operators followed the copy letter by letter as did the men setting up the headlines. They did not speak or write English and it was amazing to me that they attained such a remarkable degree of accuracy. Nevertheless mistakes did occur. There was the time when Harry Morriss entered his horse, The Knut, for the big Autumn Champions Sweepstake race. It was highly fancied. It won, to the great joy of the proprietor, who looked forward to seeing the feat commemorated by a nice banner headline across the sports page. He got one:

'THE KUNT WINS AUTUMN CHAMPIONS'

The sports page seemed to be particularly vulnerable to howling blunders by the printing staff. There was the report of a football match part of-which read: 'Then Loh, the Lido outside-left, dropped a great shit right in the goalmouth.