Coming to our own period, from the time of Robert-Houdin, there have been no great automata which will live in the history of the subject, until the year 1875, when Mr. J. N. Maskelyne (who, I am happy to tell you, is honouring us with his presence to-night) exhibited at the Egyptian Hall his marvellous “Psycho.” This was a seated figure, supported by a cylindrical pedestal of glass which stood upon a little platform, and, being on castors, could be wheeled about the floor. This automaton can actually play a game of whist, selecting the cards from a rack in front of it, and playing a most skilful game. The machine works apparently without any mechanical connection with anything outside, and the delicacy and precision of its actions, display the most consummate skill in design, and give to its inventor a high position for mechanical science. This automaton also works out arithmetical calculations, with numbers from one to a hundred millions, showing the result behind a door which opens in front of its box.
Another of Mr. Maskelyne’s automata, is the celebrated “Zoe” of 1877, a sitting figure supported like the last on a glass pedestal so as to exclude the possibility of an electrical system of communication. A sheet of paper is fastened on to the table in front, and the figure traces out very fair portraits of public characters chosen by the audience out of a list of some two hundred names.
In respect to these most beautiful machines I must refrain from revealing to you the secrets of their working, and that for two reasons, first, because I do not know them myself; and second, because Mr. Maskelyne is here and is doubtless only impatient to jump up when I sit down and tell us all about them.
I do not intend to say anything about speaking machines or to do more than make a passing reference to the very interesting work and researches of Kircher in 1650, Van Helmont, 1667, Kratzenstein, in 1780, L’Abbé Mical, in 1783, Von Kempelen in 1791, Willis in 1829, Wheatstone in 1837, or of Faber in 1862. All these mechanicians and physicists studied the philosophy of speech and produced machines or parts of machines, which could utter vowels, words or even sentences, but these machines were operated by keys and stops and were, in no sense of the term, automata.
I must, however, refer to one of the greatest marvels of modern science, the phonograph which Mr. Edison has applied in the construction of his talking dolls. Edison’s talking doll is a figure, within which a little phonograph, driven by a little winch, is concealed, and which repeats in a clear voice any sentence or rhyme which may have been spoken against its recording cylinder or disc. I am deeply disappointed to be unable to show you one of these most interesting automata to-night, for one is on its way to me across the Atlantic. Colonel Gourand very kindly sent for one that I might show it to you this evening, and I deeply regret that it has not arrived in time, for the Odd Volumes would, otherwise, have been the first to hear its voice in Europe.[11]
In the phonograph, that splendid triumph of acoustical and mechanical science, we have literally fulfilled, the prediction made by Sir David Brewster in 1883, when he wrote “I have no doubt that before another century is completed, a talking and a singing Machine will be numbered among the conquests of Science.”
No one who is familiar with any of the great European capitals can have failed to notice in the windows of the higher class of toy-shops, clock-work automata of various kinds. We have jugglers and rope dancers, conjurers, pianists, violinists, harpists and trumpeters, dancing niggers, figures fighting, knitting, sewing, writing, and engaged in almost every occupation performed by human beings, but none that I have seen are fit for comparison with the wonderful mechanical works of Vaucanson, Robert-Houdin or Maskelyne; mechanically they are nearly identical with one another, and differ only in the external application of the internal machinery. At International Exhibitions one sees one or two of superior merit, but I have not recently seen any of sufficient importance to bring before you this evening. The pianists and other musicians merely move their hands on their instruments, but the music (save the mark) whether it be a violin or a trumpet, comes from a musical snuffbox inside which is generally wound up by a different key. These figures are usually very costly, and I am always puzzled to know who are the people who purchase them. The best are generally those mechanical toys which represent the movements of animals, and here I have a mechanical bear which is rather amusing, and it is ingenious because by a very simple combination of clock work with cranks and strings a number of different motions is obtained; we have the mouth opening and shutting, the head going from side to side, the lips moving and the whole animal bowing to the spectators.
Within the last few years a most extraordinary amount of mechanical ingenuity has been brought to bear upon the construction of small automatic toys, which are sold in the streets for a few pence, and I think, even more than the extraordinarily simple and ingenious contrivances by which the various effects are produced, the great inventive merit consists in a design and method of manufacture by which they can be turned out, with a profit, at so insignificant a cost. I have brought together a few examples, a very minute fraction of the hundreds of forms that exist, but selected merely to illustrate the different types of principle of action.
A very favourite motive power is a wound up spring, consisting of strands of vulcanized india-rubber, and here I have one of the well-known butterflies which come out in Paris in 1878, where they filled the air of the Avenue de l’Opera, the shops of which were then occupied chiefly by hawkers of toys. The motive power of this toy is nothing more than a light screw propeller or fan rotated by the untwisting of a spring, while on the body of the machine are two fixed wings or fins to prevent the whole machine from rotating. The action is wonderfully like that of an animal, perhaps most like that of a bat. Here again the same principle is applied in a running mouse, and this is especially interesting from the fact that the machine winds itself up the moment the tension of the cord is relaxed, and as the spindle of the wheels is the flexible rubber itself the peculiar scuttling action of a mouse is well imitated.
There is again a large class of mechanical toys in which there is a combination of a rubber spring with a wheel and escapement, the pallets of which by their reciprocating motion producing whatever effect may be desired; the swimming fish is one of them, the wagging of the tail being produced in the way I have described. Here is another displaying considerable ingenuity. In this case an escapement wheel works a crutch which by a pair of cranks linked together causes each of two pugilists to turn a little way backwards and forwards on one heel, and the arms being hung loosely to the shoulders by rubber hinges give to the figures the appearance of hitting out vigorously.