White supporters started dancing and singing early in the evening, when the first returns showed White out ahead by the 10-per-cent margin he kept up all night.

A hired band played "Southie is My Hometown" and White, who has held office longer than any other living big-city major in the country, shook his clenched hands above his head.

Big-Hearted

"Our city belongs to everyone who lives in it, works in it, loves it," White told the crowd. "That includes Joe Timilty," he added.

At the Parker House, Timilty told the crowd that he was going to try to work with the White administration and urged his supporters to go back to their neighborhoods and "carry out the agenda" of issues raised in the campaign.

The mood in Timilty's Parker House headquarters was relatively somber, as guests milled about and forced smiles onto their faces.

The most exciting point of the evening came when a crowd of about 50 people gathered behind the banks of television cameras to watch the famed "shower scene" from Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho." aired on a local television station.

In Somerville yesterday, in what both candidates labelled the dirtiest campaign they had ever waged, Eugue Brune ousted incumbent mayor Thomas F. August by more than 2400 votes.

Brune, who won the preliminary election, got a lot of political mileage out of the city's allegedly lower tax rate, which the state has not approved despite an annouced reduction by August