A friend of ours once met a boy only ten or eleven years old, who was an excellent ventriloquist, so far as the power of throwing the voice into a closet or adjoining room goes. On being questioned if he could explain the power he had, the boy said he had heard Harrington the ventriloquist some time previous, and having a desire to possess the same acquirement, he passed in practice in a garret all the spare time he could get for many days, and at the end of that time was fairly startled himself at hearing a voice come distinctly from an old chest of drawers.
The persevering little fellow had found out for himself the true theory.
We will give our young friends some plain and simple rules and directions how to acquire the power of ventriloquism, which we have obtained from a reliable English work; many persons following these rules have obtained proficiency in this art, according as they devoted time and attention to the subject. The word ventriloquism is derived from venter, the belly, and loquor, I speak; literally signifying, belly-speaking.
1.—WHAT IS VENTRILOQUISM.
Ventriloquism may be divided into two sections, or general heads, the first of which may be appropriately designated as Polyphonism, consists of the simple imitation of the voices of human creatures, of animals, of musical instruments, and sounds and noises of every description, in which no illusion is intended, but where, on the contrary, the imitation is avowedly executed by the mimic, among which we may classify sawing, planing, door-creaking, sounds of musical instruments, and other similar imitations.
Secondly, we have ventriloquism proper, which consists in the imitation of such voices, sounds, and noises, not as originally 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.
Polyphony is very common, for 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. It is very seldom that even a blundering attempt at ventriloquism is heard, except from a public platform, simply from the want of knowledge of how to proceed. 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.
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 been accustomed by experience to associate with the idea of a person speaking from the house-top. A deception of this kind is practised with success on the organ and other musical instruments.
The English Cyclopædia says “the essence of ventriloquy consists in creating illusions as to the distance and direction whence a sound has travelled.” How these sounds are produced, we will now show.