Leaded poetry may be spaced with the en quadrat, especially when it is double-leaded or white-lined; but the en quadrat does not improve the appearance of poetry set solid, however wide the measure. Many compound words in one line may make overwide spacing between words. This blemish can be amended by putting a thin space on each side of the hyphen.
Compositors on time, and piece-hands who make alterations on time, have no excuse for the neglect of even spacing. Piece-compositors who have to take back and overrun for more even spacing should claim pay (even before first proof) for the time so spent. The proof-reader who passes uneven spacing is in fault; to keep his own reputation he should discipline compositors who are slovens in spacing.
its significance was not comprehensible at first glance. This new fashion began with the recent revival of the mannerisms of medieval illuminators, who, to give the desired prominence to a large and highly ornamented initial letter, ordered the copyists to sprawl dislocated letters to fill vacant space by the side of or over the initial. The proper coherence of letters and words had to be sacrificed; the blank space had to be filled whether it did or did not justify lettering.
Another warrant for too wide spacing is to be found in the uncouth title-pages of some English printers of the seventeenth century who had scant supply of quadrats and had to fudge for needed sorts. Every compositor who has had experience in any petty printing-house of 1845 may recall the expedients he had to resort to in composing lines of large types destitute of quadrats and spaces. If the first and last letters of the line to be displayed were placed at the ends of the measure, he could fill that line with spaces or quadrats of any smaller body. To a printer who has had this experience, it is not a little amusing to remark that all these imitations of scamped workmanship are now paraded as evidences of superior taste.
