[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:1 Sra,—London is too great
a city that one should rob a smaller one of a term to describe it as Mr. J. H. M. Abbott does in the fourth of his interesting articles, "How it Strikes an Australian" (Spectator, September 2nd). He calls London the " Hub." Was it ever called so before Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes began to publish his " Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., as long ago as 1857 ? In the sixth chapter he says " Boston State House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn't pry that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crowbar." There is no propriety in calling London a hub. It is too large. The idea of the conceit is to show the immense importance of a tiny centre of a vast circumfer- ence. Though since Dr. Holmes wrote Boston has been popularly called the "Hub," he applied the term, not to the city, but to a building on a hill in its centre, the Massachusetts State House on Beacon Hill, a real "hub." The term has been applied, following Dr. Holmes, to other cities besides London; but is appropriate only to Boston. Let London be content with being the largest city in the world. It is not the " Hub."—I am, Sir, &c., L. T. POOR.' 389 Walnut Street, Brookline, Massachusetts.
THE FORTHCOMING LIFE OF LORD LEIGHTON.
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