Boston and the Boston Legend

From its sacred Common to its dark, cobbled waterfront streets, from the storied offices of the Transcript to Pi Alley, the Old State House and Fanueil Hall, here is Boston, past and present, unique, mellow, mature. Lucius Beebe, who writes of this city, is descended from an old Bostonian family, and is at present one of the most able reporters on the new York Herald Tribune staff. Hence, into this volume, which he, himself, calls a "character study," he has been able to inject both the enthusiasm of one who loves the city and the critical detachment of a journalist. To those who subscribe to the sedative legend that Boston is a sort of stiff old lady, aloof, dull, fusty and frigid, the volume will appear a trifle unorthodox. For here it is demonstrated that Boston has a past that is not entirely compounded of noble sentiments, heroic sacrifice, and the posturings of oratorical patriots. On the contrary, it has supplied the American scene not only with Peace Jubilees and Browning Societies, but also with some of the most gorgeous rioting, hardest drinking, most learned cursing and spectacular high-binding finance on record. So while Mr. Beebe describes the city in its Puritan phase under the Mathers, in the gentle age of Emerson, Thoreau, Longfellow, and the lady poets, and in its quaint and ritualistic moments, such as its Friday Symphony concerts and Christmas Eves on Beacon Hill, he also shows us the Boston of the "Tavern Revolution," of the most violent tea party ever given, of the lusty captains of clipper ships, and of the silk-hatted mobs of anti-slavery days -- the city which claimed John L. Sullivan, the "Boston Strong Boy," and which is the nation's cockfighting capital. Mr. Beebe's prose is quick and pointed. And the drawings of Mr. Syudam are superb.