FROM DICKENS TO BAXTER

"Here's some of the twelfth thousand of the New York Sewer'! Here the Sewer's exposure of the Wall-Street Gang, and the Sewer's exposure of the Washington Gang, and the Sewer's exclusive account of a flagrant act of dishonesty committed by the Secretary of State when he was eight years old; now communicated, at a great expense, by his own nurse". Martin Chuzzlewit

City politics in Boston have from time immemorial been marked by mud-slinging and questionable tactics. For years, the few weeks preceding the election of a mayor were filled with bitter campaigning, of which no good citizen could well be proud. Cliques and gangs fought hard among themselves, and when all was over, the string of vituperation rankled on both sides. In latter days, these crude and unskillful methods have been discarded perhaps for those of a subtler and more effective nature; and the advent of cleaner, less personal contests seemed to be in sight.

Those people, who had looked upon the Boston Herald as a conservative, fair-minded publication, deserving of being ranked with the best newspapers in the country, were astonished to see in yesterday's edition, an exceedingly indelicate picture of one of the candidates for Mayor. It was a return to the "good old days" of city politics with a vengeance. The CRIMSON by no means holds a brief for Mr. Baxter. His presence in the present campaign seems distinctly uncalled for; but such tactics as the Herald used to discredit him are both unfair and unsportsmanlike. That a reputable paper should thus depart from its usual high standards seems unthinkable; it can only be hoped that the publication of the picture in question was an unsanctioned act of a minor officer of the paper. If such methods are to be pursued consistently, particularly by a paper that stands in the public mind for the Good Government Association, those who believe that politicians can be gentlemen as well, will be forced to admit that civil politics in the United States is well nigh incurable.