The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1876-10-05
vENTRIL0QUIsM.

Perhaps the most familiar of mysteri-
GUS sounds are those produced by the
ventriloquist. Familiar, because almost
every country town has been visited by
one OR other of these exhibitors-mys-
ferrous, because the real source of sound
does not correspond with the apparent.
It lies within the province of the anato-
mist OF Psychologist to explain how 1t Is
that some men can speak as If from the
stomach instead OF the throat, and with
out any perceptible movement of the
lips. But the person who can do this,
the ventrieoquist, may make himself a
most bewildering deceiver to those who
listen to him. Our power of determining
the exact direction whence a sound comes
isless than we usually imagine. 1t is said
that Saville Carey, who could initiate the
whistling of the wind, would sometimes
amuse himself by exercising this art in
q public coffee house. Some of the
guests at once rose to see whether the
would button up their coats as if cold
Sir David Brewster notices veL rio
quist of exceptional skill, st. Gill, who
one day entered a church where some
monks were lamenting the death of
brother. Suddenly they heard a voice,
as from over their heads, bewailing
the condition of the departed in purga-
tory, and reproaching them for their
want of zeal. Not suspecting the trick,
they fell on their faces and chanted the
De Profatadis. A committee appointed
by the Academic DIES Science to report
on the phenomena of ventriloquism went
with st. Gille to the house of lady, to
whom they announced that they had
come to investigate a case of aerial spir-
its somewhere in the neighborhood-
During the interview she heard what she
termed spirit voices above her head, un-
derneath the floor, and in distant parts
of the room, and was with difficulty con-
WINGED that the only spirit present was
the ventriloquistic voice of St. Gille
Brewster tells of another master of this
art, Louis Brabant, valet de chambre OF
Francis L., whose suit was rejected by
the parents of a beautiful and well en-
lowered girl with whom he was in love.
He called on the mother after the death
of the father, again to urge his suit, and
while he was present she heard the voice
of her deceased husband expressing re-
morse for having rejected Louis Brabant,
and conjuring her to give her immediate
consent to the betrothal. Frightened
and alarmed, she consented. Brabant,
deeming it desirable to behave literally
in the marriage arrangements, but hay
ing not much cash at command, resolved
to try whether his ventriIoquism would
be as eficacious with money lending
banker as it had been with the widow.
Calling on the old usurer at Lyons, he
managed that the conversation should
turn upon the subject of demons, spec
tiers, and purgatory. Suddenly was
heard the voice of the usurer's father,
complaining of the horrible sufferings he
was enduring in purgatory, and saying
that there was no way of obtaining allev-
iation except by his son advancing mon
ey to the visitor for the sake of ransom
ing Christians from the hands of the
Turks. The usurer was terrified, but
too much in love with his gold to yield
at once. Brabant went next day and
resumed the conversation, when, shortly
afterwards, were heard the voices of
host of dead relations, all telling the
same terrible story, and all pointing out
the only way OF obtaining relief. The
Insurer could resist no longer. He placed
10, 600 crowns in the hands of the unsus-
pected ventriloquist, who, of course,
forgot to pay it over for the ransom of
the Christians, either in Turkey or any
where else. When the usurer learned
afterwards how he had been duped, he
died of yexation.