4. Never venture on a feat requiring manual dexterity, till you have previously practiced it so often, as to acquire the necessary expertness.
5. As diverting the attention of the company from too closely inspecting your maneuvers is a most important object, you should manage to talk to them during the whole course of your proceedings. It is the plan of vulgar operators to gabble unintelligible jargon, and attribute their feats to some extraordinary and mysterious influence. There are few persons at the present day credulous enough to believe such trash, even among the rustic and most ignorant; but, as the youth of maturer years might inadvertently be tempted to pursue this method, while exhibiting his skill before his younger companions, it may not be deemed superfluous to caution him against such a procedure. He may state, and truly, that everything he exhibits can be accounted for on rational principles, and is only in obedience to the unerring laws of Nature; and although we have just cautioned him against enabling the company themselves to detect his operations, there can be no objection (particularly when the party comprises many younger than himself) to occasionally show by what simple means the most apparently marvelous feats are accomplished.
CURE FOR TROUBLESOME SPECTATORS.
It will sometimes happen at an early stage of the performance, that the ultimate success of the whole is likely to be endangered by a troublesome person, (generally a naughty boy,) who will persist in crying out, "I know how it is done!"—at the same time continually advancing to the table, from which it is, of course, the business of the conjurer to keep his youthful admirers. Should this be the case, the magic whistles may be produced, and the remark made, that now the troublesome boy shall show the company a trick. Having taken up one of the whistles, which has previously been filled with flour or magnesia, dust or soot, proceed to give a few directions, particularly impressing on him the necessity of blowing hard, because the whistle you place in his hand is perforated with a number of holes. The would-be magician is, therefore, excessively mortified, on applying his mouth and blowing hard, to receive the powder in his face. Any turner will make such a whistle, it being nothing more than the usual shaped toy perforated at the top with a number of holes.
THE SECRET OF VENTRILOQUISM.
The main secret of this surprising art simply consists in first making a strong, deep inspiration, by which a considerable quantity of air is introduced into the lungs, to be afterwards acted upon by the flexible powers of the larynx, or cavity situated behind the tongue, and the trachea, or windpipe; thus prepared, the expiration should be slow and gradual. Any person, by practice, can, therefore, obtain more or less expertness in this exercise; in which, though not apparently, the voice is still modified by the mouth and tongue; and it is in the concealment of this aid, that much of the perfection of ventriloquism lies.
But the distinctive character of ventriloquism consists in its imitations being performed by the voice seeming to come from the stomach: hence its name, from venter, the stomach, and loquor, to speak. Although the voice does not actually come from that region, in order to enable the ventriloquist to utter sounds from the larynx without moving the muscles of his face, he strengthens them by a powerful action of the abdominal muscles. Hence, he speaks by means of his stomach; although the throat is the real source from whence the sound proceeds. It should, however, be added, that this speaking distinctly, without any movement of the lips at all, is the highest perfection of ventriloquism, and has but rarely been obtained. Thus, MM. St. Gille and Louis Brabant, two celebrated French ventriloquists, appeared to be absolutely mute while exercising their art, and no change in their countenances could be discovered.
It has lately been shown, that some ventriloquists have acquired by practice the power of exercising the veil of the palate in such a manner, that, by raising or depressing it, they dilate or contract the inner nostrils. If they are closely contracted, the sound produced is weak, dull, and seems to be more or less distant; if, on the contrary, these cavities are widely dilated, the sound will be strengthened, the voice become loud, and apparently close to us.
Another of the secrets of ventriloquism, is the uncertainty with respect to the direction of sounds. Thus, if we place a man and a child in the same angle of uncertainty, and the man speaks with the accent of a child, without any corresponding motion in his mouth or face, we shall necessarily believe that the voice comes from the child. In this case, the belief is strengthened by the imagination; for if we were directed to a statue, as the source from which we were to expect sounds to issue, we should still be deceived, and refer the sounds to the lifeless stone or marble. This illusion will be greatly assisted by the voice being totally different in tone and character from that of the man from whom it really comes. Thus, we see how easy is the deception when the sounds are required to proceed from any given objects, and are such as they actually yield.