City officials are unable to account for the recent population drop of 10,000 citizens which was revealed in the 1955 Cambridge census.

At this week's City Council meeting, councillors summoned City Manager John J. Curry before the assembly to account for the serve loss of citizens since 1950, but no official explanation was forthcoming.

"This is the toughest advertisement Cambridge has had for years," Councillor John D. Lynch commented. "It doesn't line up right at all. It just doesn't line up right," he added.

"Something must be wrong with Cambridge," Lynch told City Manager Curry. "Is the Chamber of Commerce to blame? Is it the presence of Harvard and M.I.T.?"

Curry answered that he had checked the accuracy of the census and had found it completely in order. He suggested that the families in Cambridge must be getting smaller, since there was no noticeable change in the number of dwelling units.

"There has also been an outmigration of school children at approximately the fifth-grade level," Curry added. "People's children grow up, and then the family moves out of town."

Councillor Charles Watson has asked the Council to hire an official U.S. census taker to check the new city figures.