Bagpiper's Tunes Not Sweet to MDC

You gotta remember the cops are Irish.

A bagpiper, clad in his national dress, was only a nuisance to the MDC police Friday evening.

Dispatched to the banks of the Charles after "receiving a complaint," a two-man MDC task force silenced the bagpipes of a young man only minutes after he had begun to play.

Nobody knows his name, but he has been a familiar sight this spring, scurling up and down the Charles in front of the Business School. Friday was reportedly the first time he had performed on the Cambridge side of the river.

Proceeding with what onlookers described as "ridiculous "seriousness," the two policemen alighted from their squad ear--intent on enforcing another little-known Blue Law forbidding the "play of musical instruments on MDC reservations." The piper left at once, a handful of undergraduates remained to protest the action--one boldly requested the policemen to sing.

Friday's action highlighted a week of vigorous Blue Law enforcement on the banks of the Charles. Uniformed officials patrolled in cruisers and squad cars, breaking up football contests and frisbee frays, in the interest of the "little old ladies who might get hurt, you know."