Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-05-10
DOLLS THAT TALK.
They Would be More Entertaining If
You Could Understand What They Say.

The talking dolls have come to town. Six
| dollars and ninety-eight cents apiece is dir,
cheap for such conversational powers as theirs.
For entrails they have small monographs, and
to make them speak you have only to turn a
crank connecting with their spinal columns
Something of monotony there is about their
| speech, for each has only to say for itself a
single short nursery poem, though it will re-
peat that as often as may be desired
Six of the speaking doll babies were seated
| in a row yesterday afternoon in a downtown
shop. Their remarks were listened to by an
audience consisting at the moment when The
STAR reporter looked in, of one freckled-faced
boy, two giggling young women, who were
| dressed precisely alike for the purpose of ex-
hibiting the fact that they were twins; one con-
sumptive youth with a preternaturally high
collar a fat woman, an old man with beard
like goat, and "a door-mat poodle that was evil
IDENTITY the property of some one in the party.
Behind the counter was pretty girl with
friZZed hair and cOquettish ribbon at the
throat whose business it seemed to be to keep
on grinding out talk from the dolls one after
another.
The first one was labeled: Talking Doll
No. l." 1t had a placard of considerable size
fastened beneath its chin, which said-not the
chin but the piacard-that this doll recited
| .Old Mother Hubbard" When the pretty girl
turned the crank, the doll said with great dis
tinctness:
"Yah-yah-yah-yah- -yah-yah-yah,
yah-yah--ya -yah-yah;
-yah-yah--yah-- yah-yah-yah,
Yah-yah-yah-yah- yah-yah-yah."
1t was fortunate that the placard beneath the
dolls chin told what 1t was saying, else YOU
never would have guessed it in the world But
the two young women whose similarity of cos
tune proclaimed them twins exclaimed in
unison:
"Oh, amt it wonderful"
The fat woman gasped stertorously, the old
man pulled his goat beard refiectively the con-
sumptive youth readjusted his eyeglasses, the
boy with the freckes projected his lower chin
| derlsively and the door-mat poodle remarked
"Bow-wow!"
Talking doll No. $50 its pacard an
| nounced-was accustomed to say .Now Law
Me Down to Sleep" As was the case with No.
l, the poem in question was printed out in full,
SO that the listener should be able to follow
without difficulty the verses, which were as
| follows:
"Yah-yah-yah-yah- yah-yah-yah,
h-yah-yah-yah- -yah-yah-yah.
-yah--yah-yah- yah-yah-yah,
Yah-yah-ya h-yah-yah-y ah-yah-y ali.
That last ''Yah-yah" was "Amenm You
would never have guessed it, however, unless
you had been SO informed. As for the freckle-
faced boy, he said:
''Ah, rats!"
And then he walked out of the shop But the
twins, the fat woman, the constructive youth
| the old man with the goat beard and the door.
mat poodle stayed to listen to Talking Doll
NO. y, which was advertised to repeat the
words OF Jack and JILL" II it had been
placarded with any other nursery rhyme II
| possibly have told the difference. But en-
enlargement was given to the imagination
which, after all, is the most elevated faculty OF
the human mind.