Bloomington herald. [volume] (Bloomington, I. T. [Iowa]) 1840-1849, 1844-03-01

THE TALKING MAcHlNE.-Some weeks ago
we observed notice Of Talking Machine. ,
in some Of our exchanges, but thinking it ra-
Their improbable that the art Of man could in
vent such a machine. we passed it by in ST.
lence. II there be no such real invention. we
shall show our readers how some people have
been humbugged, by copying the following,
from az exchange paper, said to have been Ia
ken from the New York Tribune, of January
Goth. Ed. HERALD.
Having seen. in one or two papers,
an account of this new invention, we yes
tertlay went with friend TO see it. Mr.
Faber, the artist, speaks only German. We.
he has taught his machine to speak Eng-
lish, and speak il too better than German
And what is still more curious, it gives
scme Of our difficult sounds better than
Mr. Faber can pronounce them. The 9Th,
for instance, which is the Rubicon in our
language TO German, it gives like ma.
tive born American. Indeed, we do not
believe the 'sNa,ive American Party" it,
self could tell the difference. On asking
Mr.. F. how came j. to pass that his ma,
chine should speak better English than
! German, lie replied: "Why should'n, il !?
it is American born" The sounds is
sue from the lips Of mask that as they
open and shut reveal tung tina, plays like
the living member, though not so lin
berry, It is really laughable to see this
bust placed upright, with ,urbaued head
and whiskered face slowly enuncia,ing in
whining tone, sounds which we have
heretofore considered as belonging exclu-
sively to our species. 1t beats the parrot
out and out. 1t will 60 through our al
phabe, and Numerals with great precision,
and say ''three hundred and thriy-three
thousand three hundred and ,hirly-,hree''
as German may despair Of ever saying.
II speaks with decided tone, as il i, had
los, lis palate. and with great elaboration.
If Mr.. Faber himself could speak English,
we have no doubt his wooden pupil would
improve rapidly, and enunciate much more
| readily. The grave, solemn countenance
never changes, no matter how funny the
words may be. Uncivil as il may seem,
one cannot help laughing in this mys,eri
| Gus creatures face, when with head erect,
and CLASSY eyes fixed on some distant OBJ
ject he says: "Good-naor-ning gentle
men and ladies'" He undertook to sing
"ial Columbia, Happy land" but we
cannot say he was a Grisi or a Clara No
vella-however. he stopped now and,hen
and performed some shakes admiralty
We thought. he sang better Dutch than
English. The perfection of the instru
ment may be seen in the correctness with
which il pronounces not only the full VOW
ell sounds, but the middle sounds. Mr.. F.
has been engaged on i. seventeen years,
and it took him seven years 10 get the
sound of .e' alone. Mr.. Faber IS good
musician and composer, as we'll as inslru-
ment maker.
THE yellow BoYs.-The N. Y. Sun
notices the coinage al the mint in New
Orleans and remarks that. when Col Ben
ton said that the effect Of the specie clause
would be to make gold flow up the Mis-
sissippi when he shook his purse exul,>
ingly, filled with yellow boys. and said, in
advocating the establishment Of mint in
New Orleans, tina. he expected three mil
lions would be coined in single year,
the world imagined thu, the western states
man was giving reins to his fancy. Ii
seems, however, tina. he was right-that
there was no romance about it, and tina.
the mint has coined four instead of three
millions year.-Ottawa Free Trader.