77,000 Years of Bad Luck Is a Possibility

If there’s any truth to the superstition that breaking a mirror brings bad luck, workers in a Ukrainian mirror factory can look forward to many years of ill fortune.

The workers smashed about 11,000 defective mirrors that could have been sold at a reduced price, according to a letter in the Communist Party daily Pravda on Wednesday.

A reader from the town of Vinnitsa complained that trade union officials and management brushed aside his objections that it was a pity to waste the mirrors.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev has stressed the need for thrift and better use of resources to help boost the economy.