Drum Undamaged After Brief Sojourn With Yale Thieves

The Harvard Band's seven-foot drum found its way back to Cambridge last Thursday after its Sunday abduction by a group of Yale undergraduates.

The Yale police returned the $6000 drum to the band Thursday noon, band member David W. Kleeman '79 said yesterday.

The drum is undamaged except for a small dent and some scratches, he added.

Twenty Yale undergraduates who call themselves The Pundits stole the drum from the band room last Sunday at 7 a.m., Roy McDonald '77, the Harvard band manager, said yesterday.

In what the Yale Daily News account this week calls "21 minutes at Cambridge" the thieves broke through a window of the band's music library, punched down the temporary partition separating the library from the band room, and cut the heavy chain holding the drum.

The group then took the drum out the main door and loaded it into a Pepsi truck.

Five people, including a janitor, passed by during the operation, but the Yalies escaped detection, McDonald said.

According to the Daily News, the students had fortunately "stationed several lookouts who were variously walking a dog, kissing on the street corner and studying."

They merely "found they had nothing to do with the drum," he said.

The band is asking the thieves for $75 to cover the damages done to their facilities.