Secondly, we have ventriloquism proper, which consists in the imitation of such voices,, sounds, and noises, not as originating in him, but in some other appropriate source at a given or varying distance, in any or even in several directions, either singly or together—a process exciting both wonder and amusement, and which may be accomplished by thousands who have hitherto viewed the ventriloquist as invested with a power wholly denied by nature to themselves. It is needless to observe, that when the imitations are effected without a movement of mouth, features, or body, the astonishment of the audience is considerably enhanced.
The terms polyphony, mimicry, or imitation, are employed to designate results obtained in reference to the first division of the subject, where no illusion is intended; while the term ventriloquism distinguishes those under the second division, where an illusion is palpably produced. The first is much more common than the latter; indeed, there is scarcely a public school which does not possess at least one boy capable of imitating the mewing of a cat, the barking of a dog, or the squeaking voice of an old woman. On the other hand, from a want of the knowledge of how to proceed, it is very seldom that even a blundering attempt at ventriloquism is heard, except from a public platform.
There have been many statements put forward defining ventriloquism, but we are decidedly of opinion that the theory of two of the most celebrated of foreign ventriloquists, Baron de Mengen and M. St. Gille, who were sufficiently unselfish to avow the secret of their art, is not only the most correct, but it is at once the most reasonable and the most natural.
From Baron de Mengen’s account of himself, and the observations made by M. de la Chapelle, in his frequent examinations of St. Gille, whom we shall afterwards refer to, it seems that the factitious ventriloquist voice does not (as the etymology of the word imports) proceed from the belly, but is formed in the inner parts of the mouth and throat.
The art does not depend on a particular structure or organization of these parts, but may be acquired by almost any one ardently desirous of attaining it, and determined to persevere in repeated trials.
The judgments we form concerning the situation and distance of bodies, by means of the senses mutually assisting and correcting each other, seem to be entirely founded on experience; and we pass from the sign to the thing signified by it immediately, or at least without any intermediate steps perceptible to ourselves.
Hence it follows that if a man, though in the same room with another, can by any peculiar modifications of the organs of speech, produce a sound which, in faintness, tone, body, and every other sensible quality, perfectly resembles a sound delivered from the roof of an opposite house, the ear will naturally, without examination, refer it to that situation and distance; the sound which he hears being only a sign, which from infancy he has become accustomed, by experience, to associate with the idea of a person speaking from a house-top. A deception of this kind is practised with success on the organ and other musical instruments.
Rolandus, in his “Aglossostomographia,” mentions, that if the mediastinum, which is naturally a single membrane, be divided into two parts, the speech will seem to come out of the breast, so that the bystanders will fancy the person possessed.
Mr. Gough, in the “Manchester Memoirs,” vol. v. part ii. p. 622 London, 1802, investigates the method whereby men judge by the ear of the position of sonorous bodies relative to their own persons.
This author observes, in general that a sudden change in direction of sound, our knowledge of which, he conceives, does not depend on the impulse in the ear, but on other facts, will be perceived when the original communication is interrupted, provided there be a sensible echo. This circumstance will be acknowledged by any person who has had occasion to walk along a valley, intercepted with buildings, at the time that a peal of bells is ringing in it. The sound of the bells, instead of arriving constantly at the ears of the person so situated, is frequently reflected in a short time from two or three different places. These deceptions are, in many cases, so much diversified by the successive interpositions of fresh objects, that the steeple appears, in the hearer’s judgment, to perform the part of an expert ventriloquist on a theatre—the extent of which is adapted to its own powers, and not to those of the human voice.