Black Cloaks and Bluecoats

Friday morning a CRIMSON editorial unwittingly advocated that the Cambridge Police establish a more efficient patrol of Garden Street, for the sake of harassed Radcliffe girls. This editorial was indeed misguided, for at the very time of its printing, a student was languishing in a Cambridge jail, a victim of an all-too-close surveillance by the local gendarmes.

One night while striding down the street in black-caped majesty, this Harvardian aroused the suspicions of a Cambridge officer, who obviously felt that no law-abiding citizen should be caught dead in a long black cape. Seeing this sinister character emerge from a dark side-street, the officer immediately summoned the assistance of two Cambridge youths in order to detain the supposed culprit. The appearance of uncivil inhabitants of the town at an official arrest caused some confusion in the student's mind, and ill-considered words were exchanged on both sides. When the student was found to be without identification, the ensuing heated language eventually led to the imprisonment of an innocent, albeit strange, man.

There are a few obvious morals to be derived from this story. The first is that the Cambridge Police should recognize the friction between the uneducated but moral town and the educated gown by not employing non-official inhabitants of the town in the official chastisement of "gownies." The second truth which this tale teaches is that the Cambridge Police should place men who are accustomed to college frivolity on the Garden Street beat. Finally, students are warned that, if they must sport themselves in freakish attire, it would be well to carry along either a bursar's card, or money.