ossibility of not being understood. If a reader
cannot grasp readily the lead, the chances are nine out of ten that he
will not read the story. Note the following overloaded lead and its
improvement by being cut into three sentences:

|Barely able to see out of her swollen and discolored|
|eyes, and her face and body covered with cuts and |
|bruises, received, it is alleged, when her father |
|attacked her because of her failure to secure work, |
|Mary Ellis, 15 years old, living at 1864 Brown |
|Street, when placed on the witness stand Monday, |
|told a story which resulted in Peter Ellis, her |
|father, being arrested on a charge of assault with |
|intent to do great bodily harm. |

|Charged with beating unmercifully his daughter, |
|Mary, 15, because she could not obtain work, Peter |
|Ellis, 1864 Brown Street, was arraigned in police |
|court Monday. The girl herself appeared against |
|Ellis. Her body, when she appeared on the witness |
|stand, was covered with cuts and bruises, her face |
|black from the alleged blows, and her eyes so much |
|swollen that she could hardly see. |

The following lead, too, is overloaded and all but impossible
to understand:

|Two letters written by H. M. Boynton, an advertising|
|agent for the Allen-Procter Co., to "Dear Louise," |
|in which he confessed undying love and which are |
|replete with such terms of endearment as "little |
|love," "dear beloved," "sweetheart," "honey," and |
|just plain "love," and which were alleged by him to |
|have been forged by his wife, Mrs. Hannah Benson |
|Boynton, obtained a divorce for her yesterday in |
|district court on the grounds of alienated |
|affections. |

Few readers would wade through this maze of shifted constructions and
heavy, awkward phrasing for the sake of the divorce story following. In
the following form, however, it readily becomes clear:

|Two love letters to "Dear Louise" cost H. M. |
|Boynton, advertising agent for the Allen-Procter |
|Co., a wife yesterday in district court. The letters|
|were produced by Mrs. Hannah Benson Boynton to |
|support her charge of alienated affections, and were|
|replete with such terms of endearment as "undy