Page:The practice of typography; correct composition; a treatise on spelling, abbreviations, the compounding and division of words, the proper use of figures and nummerals by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914.djvu/153

 Assuming that all divisions are blemishes, some printing-houses try to put these rules in practice: avoid divisions in three consecutive lines, in the first and last lines of any paragraph or page, in the proper name of any person or place. A strict compliance with all these rules is impracticable in the ordinary measure without the coöperation of an author who is willing to shorten or lengthen the words in a line by substituting synonymous words or expletives that will prevent the objectionable division. There are few authors who will take this trouble. Without doubt, words always appear better unbroken, but the breaking of words may not be so unsightly as the breaking up of a general uniformity of the spacing between words. To avoid divisions that may be offensive, the compositor may have to hair-space one line and em-quad the next line. He may make a worse division in the lines following that he has to overrun. He may unintentionally produce the irregular upcurving gaps of white across lines, known as hounds'teeth, which are more offensive to the reader than any strangeness of division. The setting of Wil- at the end of a tight line and of liam McKinley at the beginning of another line is not so sightly as William McKinley in one line, but the attempts of a compositor, without the help of the author, to keep this name in one line may and probably will produce a much greater blemish.

More attention is now given to the even spacing