fortunate person at any distance,
but at that identical moment. I am glad to say that I have never seen
or heard of this myth being verified.

On one occasion a medical officer knowing that I was interested in
Magic, told me that he was attending an idiot girl who was covered
with sores and that the common idea in the bazaar was that some
person was working "Jadoo" upon her, using this doll method of doing
so. He kindly allowed me to visit the girl with him, and, being an
ordinary mortal and unused to horrible sights, I was shocked at her
appearance. She had nasty open sores on her cheeks, arms and forehead.
She was certainly an imbecile. Her father was adamant in his belief
that "Jadoo" and nothing else accounted for her state. Her imbecility
was due, we found, to her having had a fall as a baby. In order to
ascertain the cause of the sores the medical officer removed her to
the cantonment (Government) hospital, where after a period they
yielded to treatment and were eventually cured. Evidently the "Jadoo"
had ceased. On her return to her ancestral hut, these sores again
appeared. With the permission of the medical officer and the parents,
I employed a reliable attendant to watch the girl. In three days I
received the following report. The previous evening, when the girl
thought that she was not being watched, the attendant saw her take
something from a hiding place and rub her face with it two or three
times. He watched her replace whatever it was, and later found it. He
gave it to us with his report. It proved to be a piece of nut used by
"Dhobies" or Indian Washermen to mark the clothing committed to their
destruction-care, I should say. On every article of clothing returned
by the "Dhobie" there is in one corner a small brown mark,
corresponding to the stitched mark used by Laundries in England, by
which the owner of the article washed is identified. This nut is
called, I believe, "Areca nut." When applied to the human skin it
causes a sore. The illness from which the poor girl was suffering was
an "inclination to maim or disfigure oneself," commonly found with
imbeciles. (I have touched wood, you medical people, so please don't
abuse me if I am wrong!)

As the parents were not fully convinced that "Jadoo" was not being
worked, we again took the girl to hospital and again was she cured of
the ghastly sores.

This is the only case of such "Jadoo" that has come to my personal
knowledge.

There is another form o