Broomless Bruja

Like pressagents, oil promoters and manufacturers of face mud, witches must never allow a client to feel doubt about the product. This is particularly true in the matter of hexes and evil spells. When scraggly-haired, Mexican-born Mrs. Martina Cordova burned black candles and stirred up foul-smelling liquids in her Denver rooming house, she looked very impressive. But her method of applying and removing hexes was too routine.

Instead of thrusting pins into a dummy or crossing her eyes in a victim's presence, she simply mutilated his photograph. She removed curses by the same dreary system: applicants for de-hexing were told to put a torn photograph under a rug, with the feet pointing to the door so the hex could walk out.

Last week this machine-age approach got Mrs. Cordova into trouble. Three of her best clients complained about her work to District Attorney James T. Burke. One aggrieved man with a "stomach misery" said he had paid her $60, had drunk a quart of mysterious liquid every three days for five months without any sign of improvement. Another had given her $25 to slap a hex on an undesirable daughter-in-law. The damned thing hadn't worked. Neither had a $40 wife-luring job.

District Attorney Burke was slightly baffled at first. If Mrs. Cordova was a witch--even an unsuccessful witch--what could he do about it? He set a deputy to searching the statutes, discovered that a law prohibiting palmistry, mesmerism and seership also made "crafty sciences" illegal. Promptly he jailed Mrs. Cordova; just as promptly she got out--by muttering Spanish phrases, throwing dark glances and posting $1,000 bail.

Free, she lighted a cigaret, stared into the distance, fingered a half pound of religious medals and denied the whole business. "I am not a bruja [witch]," said she. By week's end many of her clients disappointedly agreed: the district attorney had not yet suffered from cramps, colic, or cast in the eye, had apparently felt no overpowering urge to eat glass or stick his head into an airplane propeller.

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