Show OOOOOIS CAUSES KilliNG Of COWS LEADS TO THE WANTON SLAUGHTER SLAUGH-TER CP 1 MANY HEAD OF FINE CATTLE LIBERAL REWARD IS OFFERED Only the Hide and Heart Are Taken from the Dead Animals According to the Old Aztec Practice San Antonio TexAn outbreak of voodooism Is responsible for the mysterious mys-terious killings many tine cows In the vicinity of this city Many owners own-ers of cattle living fli the suburbs linvo looked In vain for their milk purveyors In the morning The gentle friend of the family was found to be missing and the Instituted search usually disclosed her body In the chnpparal G A Davis of this city was one of the first to miss his valuable Jersey In this manner and since then others have sustained similar simi-lar losses The odd feature of the case was that nothing but the hide and the heart of the animal were missing At first It was thought that the animals had been killed for their sklus but a rJSO watch kept over the dealers In hides has shown that so far none of the hides has been disposed of Sheriff Ilndsey and his deputies have been working day and night to get a clew that might lead to a complete com-plete solution of the mystery but so far they have not been successful Tho I offer of a substantial reward has now been called to their aid I Though the Mexican population of San Antonio Is a very orderly and law abiding one as a whole there Is cn ugh of an Indifferent element among them that would not be averso to committing those depredations If spurred on by what they would con skier a religious motive As Is well known the Indian strain Is very prominent In tho lower class Mexl ana As a matter of fact In a large ercciltagc of them the Spanish or other Aryan blood Is a negligible quantity That some of the old Indian superstitious super-stitious should havo survived In their r tit t t 1 1 1t Il j 1 t tt rr rrlu 1 1 i I l l tl I ilk j fv E r r 1 4 f r 1t Only Heart and Hide Taken and bo liable to periodical outbreaks Is therefore not to bo wondered at Indian voodooism as practiced after the fall of the Aztec empire Is really nothing more than a continuation of the old Aztec religion the princIpal feature of which was human sacrifice The victims of the old Aztec priests suffered death by having their hearts torn out of their bodies by main force After time Spanish had succeeded In stamping out this barbarous practice the Indian tribes still adhering to tho faith of their fathers though noml nally Christian took to sacrificing animals an-imals In the same manner that human beings had formerly been sacrificed and like all primitive people thought to appease their gods best by sacrificing sacrific-ing that which was considered mos cherished In tearing out the animals heart the object today is to get possession of the blood contained In It To this fluid are ascribed a number of mlracu lous properties of a disease combating nature The authorities of this city and county are In no mood to permit as noxious a practice as voodooIsm to flourish under their very noses Though a number of arrests have been made more Important clews are now being followed and further developments de-velopments are anticipated as a result of the reward offered Of all people tho lowclass Mexican U the least able to withstand tho lure of money Every effort will be made to get the high priest of tho cult into the clutches of the law The punishments that will be meted out will no doubt be such as to make adherence to oodoolsm and Its attendant at-tendant features very undesirable |