Five Score Indians Discard Identity to Enter Cambridge--Pay Half Fare and Pass Customs as "Old Bones"

Travel is pretty expensive these days, and times are getting so that even when a person is dead he can't be assured that he will get any concessions from the steamship companies. A shipment of Yucatan Indians, bound for Cambridge, were forced to discard their personal identity before they could even get half-fare tickets.

The 100 Yucatan Indians comprising the shipment were, and still are, dead, buried, and mummified. They were bound for the University Museum from their native land, to be set up as curiosities and gazed at by people who have never been mummified.

W. G. Morse '99, purchasing agent for the University, opened negotiations with the Ward Steamship Line for the transportation of the mummified Indians from Yucatan to Cambridge. Mummies were just wasted on the Ward Steamship Line. "Passage costs just $100 per person," they told Mr. Morse.

"But these aren't persons; they're mummies," complained Mr. Morse. "They were persons once, but you can't expect me to pay $10,000 for 100 past performances."

"If you call them persons, you pay $100," said the Ward Steamship Line. So Mr. Morse thought, and told the purers. "They're really not persons, they're just old bones."

"Oh old bones," said the purser. "We charge reduced rates for old bones."

At this point the Munson Steamship line offered to transport the mummies to Plymouth free of charge, if they didn't mind riding with a cargo of hemp. At the quay in Plymouth the United States Custom officers demanded itemized and minute descriptions of all the cargo. Here was another puzzle. The mummies had forgotten their names.

A frantic wire to Mr. Morse revealed that for want of a name the mummies hadn't the ghost of a chance of getting into Plymouth.

"Mummies, what mummies?" said Mr. Morse. "Perhaps you mean my old bones that have given so much trouble. Just tell the Customs, 'old bones.'"

The old bones are now in the University Museum.