Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1881-12-07
From the New York Sun.

NentrilOquists, like poets, are born, not made
The power of throwing the voice, so that it shall
appear to come from some distant place, Is a
peculiar gift possessed by very few. The ven
triloquist speaks, as is indicated by the title of
that mysterious mode of speech, from the belly
and not with the mouth.
All those foregoing statements used to be. but
a very little while ago, articles of popular faith.
and the exact opposite of each affirmation is the
simple truth. Anybody who thinks it worth his
while to practice it can be ventriloquist more
or less skillful, according to the time he spends
on it and the gift Of mimicry which ne naturally
possesses. Nobody can ''throw the voice. and
the art of ventriiOquism is simply the trick Of
making the voice seem, by its modulatiOnS to
come from one or another place to which the
attention of the nearer has previously been
directed. And. finally, if there is any one par-
ticular thing for which belly is not needfti. it
is is for sO-calied ventriloquism. In fact. there
is no such thing as ventrilOquism, and that
which people mean when theyuse that word
should more properly be called polyphOny. or
the art of many sounds That. at least. ia what
Mr. Henry HattOn says about IT, and as he is
not only an exceedingly fine performer of parlor
magic. but all excellent ventriloaujst as well.
his opinion in the mater is worth Something
And he went on
1.-The best evidence that there is no such thing
as throwing the voice is in the fact that no ven
trlloquist. or polyphonst, can make his voice
SOUND any nearer to you than he is himself
that It must always be away from you. To pro-
duce the deception of seeming to throw the
voice the first requisite is knowledge of, and
skill In. mOdulating the tones produced i'm very
nearly the ordinary way of speech, so as simply
10 make them louder or lower, according to the
distance OF the nearer from the place whence
tney are supposed to come. and the obstacles in
the way, imaginably. of the sound. l said very
nearly the ordinary way of speech, because all
the pOiyphOnistic fraternity practice peculiarly
unnatural sort Of head voice. l don't know
why they do it, though do it myself, and am
not enough Of Psychologist to describe how
the organs of speech are used to produce it; but
anybody who tries to sing falsetto will readily
understand 1t for himself That head voice is
no doubt used for the reasons that even in a
haif voice, or less. its sharpness makes it dis
tlnct, and that it emphasizes the dialect Ian
guaSe, which is the pOyphonist's chief stock in
trade.
There is a person in this city who teaches
ventrlloqulsm, and who talks very learnedly
about forming cavity in the side of the
mouth. But that is all humbug What the
performer wants is not any extra hollow inside
MS cheek. but good tough cheek-a braZen
cheek. so to speak-tG offer to the public He
must necessarily be a good mimic apt in imi-
Eating the voices of others and every sound he
hears that comes within the range of the
human voice. without that knack he never can
be good ventrilOquist. but having it. all he
lacks is practice in moduIating his voice to give
false ideas OF" distance. Then. before he ap-
pears III public. he must have confidence in
himself knowledge how to lead his auditors
to form erroneous ideas of where his sounds
come from. and, above all, impudence.
The motto of the ventriloquist, as of the
ParlOr magician, must be 'fduddce toujous
rGudace My character is better than my
french. but guess | got that about right any
way That leading of the auditors is a most
Important thing. 1t is trick to deceive the
sense OF hearing, as / constantly employ in my
magic business other tricks aud gestures to de-
ceive the sense OF sight. You say to an audi
ence, Now we are going to hear from Joseph.
who is behind that door, and if you lower your
voice to about what you think the volume of
JOseph's voice would be after penetrating the
closed door. they will more than meet YOU half
way IN an effort to make themselves believe
that it is perfectly Joseph's voice coming from
the place You point out. You say The old man
Is up stairs; Teddy is in the cellar and as YOU
look up or down. their imaginatiOns travel
away ahead OF you, fully prepared to accept as
coming from aloft or below the suppressed head
voice which comes from your mouth Indeed
there is hardly limit to human credulity.
"A few years ago Howard Clifton, a very
clever pol yphOnst when travelling through the
northwest with well-knOwn magician origin
ated very bold trick upon guieless audi
ence He SAID to them: I shall do in your
presence feat never attempted by any other
ventrli0quist than myself-that of Causing these
Two n@ures to sing duet, so that you will hear
distinctly the two voices at one and the same
time And he did it. for versatile assistant
sang the second part with him behind the
scenes. and as he worked the jaws of the figures
the audience really believed that he alone, by
MS WONDERFUL art, was singing the duet Any
body OF ordinary common sense. stopping to
thlnk for moment, would have known that the
thing was clearly impossible; but audiences ex-
pect to be amused, not to be troubled to think
why. do you know that when second sight
nrst came out there were thousands of people
VINO believed that it was simply wonderful ex-
nioition OF ventriiOquism, most absurd theory.
the grOundlessness of which was manfest to any
one who knew anything of the laws of sound.
anu as SAID before. stopped to think.
speaking OF the figures reminds me CT
another very simple trap to catch the credulity
OF the unsuspecting public, namely, the two lit
tie maniNins with working jaws which many
ventrioquists now show seated upon their
knees, and with which they go through most of
their performances. One OF these is a darky.
generally, and the other an Irishman; or one
may be an old woman and the other a York
shireman, or any other couple you please. The
Inc heads OF the manikins and the head of the
performer are so close together that no person
in the audience could possibly tell if ali three
heads We're alive and speaking from which
voice proceeded except by its dialect or pecu-
liar information; and that is where the useful
ness OF good command of dialect comes in
well. The sO-called ventrilOquial act, under
those conditions, Is nothing more than a dia-
iect performance, generally so slangy,
witiess. and poor that if attempted by the
performer in his own proper person, instead
OF under the cloak Of his manikins It
would end in his being pelted of the stage, but
1t goes splendidly under the name of ventrilo-
quism. +. ID. Davies, Familiarity known as Teddy
Davies, has laid claim to be the originator of the
talking figures, but Macabe in his book saws that
he, when boy, used to see travelling about Lon
don streets rough old tramp who had two
figures with which he gave ventriloquial per-
formances. and good ones too; and that must
have been nearly quite fifty years ago; so that
Davies claim is rather diaphanous. The great
stock in trade of the general run of yentrilo-
quists nowadays is slang of the commonest sort,
mixed with seeming personalities. When Da-
yies was over here, one of his big hits was max
ing one of his little figures affect to recognize
an acquaintance in the gallery and shout up at
him, Hi! Maguffi1, We tough; why don't We pay
fifty cents like man and come down stairs?'
The audience would always shout at that
'The only real novelty introduced in ventril-
oquism within good many years was TESTERS
talking hand,' which was a very clever per-
fOrmance indeed. He used to make up one of
his hands as an old woman's face the thumb
Stimulating the movement Of a lower Jaw, and
the dialogue between it and the figure Of an old
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