Ventriloquists may, according to their specialties, be divided into various categories. Some devote their talent to the imitation of the cries of animals, the songs of birds, the noise of tools, etc.; others imitate the sound of musical instruments; some mock the noise produced by a crowd, a regiment, or a procession; while others, again, make dolls or dummies speak.
Certain ventriloquists imitate the sound of musical instruments, from that of the violin up to that of brass instruments with the most piercing notes. Others excel in imitating the noise of the plane, saw, etc.
Certain ventriloquists, while hidden by a screen simply, have the faculty of making their audience believe that several persons, or even a crowd, are in the vicinity.
At Egyptian Hall, London, a magician recently made his appearance upon the stage, carrying a doll, with which he held a somewhat uncouth conversation. The lips of the doll were observed to move, and the illusion was complete, when all at once the doll’s head was strangely transformed. The magician had just opened his hand, showing that it was the latter alone that—inclosed in a white glove upon which were a few colored marks—formed the doll’s head.
In our [engraving] may be seen two methods of arranging the fingers for forming a doll’s head with the hand. The illusion is produced by making a few simple lines with charcoal, and wrapping a handkerchief or napkin around the hand; then, if one has a little aptness for ventriloquism, he may hold a conversation with the head.
In our time, most ventriloquists who exhibit in public considerably facilitate the illusion that they desire to produce by using large articulated dummies, which they make speak and sing, and talk to one another—each in a different voice. These figures are so constructed that the ventriloquist’s hands can move their arms and legs, turn their heads to the right or left, give their shoulders a shrug, open or close their eyes, and move their lower jaws in such a way that their mouths seem to utter the words that the spectator hears.
We may say, in a general way, that these ventriloquists, thanks to the use of their dummies, succeed in producing so complete an illusion that people are frequently persuaded that the voice heard actually comes from the mouth of the figure, and that it does not proceed from the ventriloquist standing near the latter, but from a confederate hidden somewhere about, whose voice is heard through the intermedium of a speaking-tube.
METHOD OF MAKING FACES WITH THE HAND.