What is it? CCXXVI

You knew Mme. Cervera?

On June 5 at the World's Fair, her husband Don Manuel Cervera was introduced to the crowd as the favorite matador of the King of Spain.

Carleton Bass was known in Mexico as the American Matador, but he was from Ireland. Cervera offered him and five other bullfighters $250 for a bullfight at the World's Fair, and there would be a six-month American tour. Mme. Cervera assured him that Richard Norris and the Exposition Company had fixed everything with the St. Louis authorities.

June 4, the sheriff announced that deputies would arrest anyone seen bullfighting. Norris didn't have any bulls, anyway. He showed Bass some steers. Bass said fighting a steer would ruin his reputation.

As the spokesman for the bullfighters, Bass agreed to fight steers if the bullfighters were paid in advance. Norris said he'd given Mme. Cervera the check. She told Bass the bank had rejected it.

On the morning of June 7, Cervera told people he was going to Bass's hotel room and might not return alive because Bass was jealous of his reputation as a bullfighter. (In fact, Cervera was not a bullfighter. He was a dancer.)

A carpenter working in the hall saw him enter the room. Ten minutes later he heard a shot. Bass immediately asked him to come as a witness. There was no blood on the floor because Bass had thoughtfully shot Cervera in the heart. A butcher knife lay by the body. Bass said it was self-defense.

Bass told police Cervera had pulled the knife after Bass insisted that nobody would put on the show without being paid. Bass leaped over the bed, picked up his pistol from a table, and fired. I'll bet Cervera wished he'd used a pointed cane instead of a knife.

Police speculated that the dispute was really about Mme. Cervera, described as a striking blonde. Blonde jokes could ruin a surveyor's reputation.

I met her once on the banks of The Severn, a blonde woman who walked with a stick and carried a bag of surveyors tools. After I had shown interest in her theodolite she invited me to spend an hour or so "eeling" with her. She expertly used her stick to hook the eels from the river. Obviously a woman of many talents.

THAT'S HER!

Marian Cervera was an American who had traveled to St. Louis to make a bullfighting contract with Norris on behalf of her husband. To prevent the bullfight, authorities tore down the arena June 4, three days before the killing. The prosecutor decided it was self-defense and released Bass about June 9.

Norris capitalized on the publicity. He rebuilt the arena to hold 5,000 and imported Mexican fighting bulls. He held the first bullfight September 4. On September 16, Mrs. Cervera tried to stab Felix Roberts with her cane in court. He and other matadors were on trial. He had not been associated with Bass, so the trial must have been about the current fights.

Those fights went on every Sunday for years. Matadors infuriated bulls by poking them with canes. Matadors were injured every week. The Humane Society went to court, but the judge ruled that it wasn't bullfighting because the bulls weren't stabbed. Mrs. Cervera, who ran a business called "Creation," went to the governor to have them stopped. To get even, Roberts threatened to hire Bass as a matador.

Finally the Missouri Supreme Court took the case. The management demonstrated that the audience were decent people who enjoyed watching the sport after church. However, the plaintiffs presented evidence that there were Mexicans in the crowd, that some women did not wear bonnets, and that some men used vulgar language. Also, the Supreme Court said the killing of Cervera and the lack of testimony from Bass showed that the business was run by violent criminals (although Bass was long gone and had had no dealings with the current management.)

So the business was shut down permanently although the Supreme Court announced that Mrs. Cervera was not an impressive witness. It sounds as if the justices were prejudiced against blonde surveyors.