Police Nab 'Beached Sailor' On Alcoholic Charity Drive

A hard luck story, told too glibly to suspicious undergraduates, brought hard luck--in the form of a night in jail--to a middle aged man last night. He was held on charges of trespassing and drunkenness by Cambridge police after taking $10 and a railroad ticket to New York from several Dunster House residents.

Claiming he was a merchant marine radio technician trying to get back to his ship in New York, and using the name "Francis McGowan" the shabbily-dressed vagrant worked through C-entry in Dunster House and was apprehended by Yard police as he tried to talk his way past the Winthrop House janitor.

He had approximately $10 in cash on him at the time of his arrest. The railroad ticket, obtained from Louis Gerstley '45, a special student in psychology, McGowan tore up in the face of the police.

Banger-New York Trek

McGowan told Gerstley, and H. Norman Richards '50, in Richards' room in Dunster House, that he had been in Bangor, Maine, and was hitch-hiking to New York, where, he said, he was employed on a Standard Oil Company tanker due to leave for Rangoon within the next few days.

Gerstley reported him to the Yard police after checking with other residents of C-entry and finding discrepancies in McGowan's story. The $16 was given back to the original donors.