This is an independent column and may not necessarily agree with the Crimson editorial policy.

Despite the laments of twenty-five year graduates and others of the nostalgic type, this world seems still a virile and stimulating place to live in. Wars and things in Spain are all very well for the front page, but all the really exciting things happen, it seems in Boston--at our very doors, as Mowgli would say.

"Slicing Them Up"

Those at whose doors all these events take place never seem to be numbered among our personal acquaintances, but that is doubtless only an indication of the incipient breakdown of the capitalist system. At least the important compiling of records of deeds of derring do is performed for all who have eyes to see by little cultural phenomena like the Boston Daily Record.

One of the important categories of literature as recognized by secondary school English masters is "escape" literature, and the Record provides opportunities for escape rivalled only by the most remarkable of lobster newburgh nightmares. Here in truth is the safety valve on life for those who live out their drab existances for from the palaces of wealth and pleasure of a now bygone era.

And as a fair example of this Elizabethan lust for life that is satisfied by Boston's Home Picture Newspaper, the following headlines called from two pages may be cited: Madman Kidnaps Auto Driver. Vodka Homicide, Dies in Auto Blaze, Air Vet Held in Matricide, Dead Beside Prayers, Find Body of Girl Severed, Battle Today on Bertolini, and Hot Knife Halts Bleeding, while corporate liquidation is taken advantage of by the merry police, who drag the river bottom in "the hope of stirring up more of the body".

But the painting is too dark, and must needs be set off with some happy pictures, both for contrast and for encouragement. In the words of James M. Curley, the man who has plumbed the depths of all human emotion. "How far the little candle sends its beams, so shines a good deed in a naughty world", and it is in this spirit that we are given two little pictures, one of the "Eugenics Baby" who has just wed, and one of F. D. R., God bless him, collecting stamps.

Neither the Elizabethans nor anyone else had any monopoly on the tragedy of blood.