So toast the health of those brave lads that bore the palm away,

a child are now placed so near the auditor that he can distinguish, without looking at them, the direction of the sounds which they utter, that is, whether the sound comes from the right or the left hand person, let the man be supposed capable of speaking in the voice of a child. When the man speaks in the language and the accents of the child, the auditor will suppose that the child is the speaker, although

Africa.

United Service Journal.

Spirit of Discovery.

VENTRILOQUISM.

THE art of the ventriloquist is well known it consists in making his auditors believe that words and sounds proceed from certain persons and certain objects in his vicinity, while they are uttered by himself; and it is founded on that property of sound in virtue of which the human ear is unable to judge with any accuracy of the direction in which sounds reach it. This incapacity of the ear is the fertile source of many of those false judgments which impress a supernatural character upon sounds that have a fixed locality and a physical origin. We know of a case, where a sort of hollow musical sound, originating within three or four feet of the ears of two persons in bed, baffled for months every attempt to ascertain its cause. Sometimes it seemed to issue from the roof, some times from a neighbouring apartment, but never from the spot from which it really came. Its supposed localities were carefully examined, but no cause for its production could be ascertained. Though it was always heard by both persons together, it was never heard when A. alone was in the apartment, and the time of its occurrence depended on the presence of B. This connected it with his destiny, and the imagination was not slow in turning the discovery to its own purposes. An event, however, which might never have occurred in the life-time of either party, revealed the real cause of the sound, the locality of which was never afterwards mistaken.

In order to understand what part this indecision of the ear performs in the feats of the ventriloquist, let the reader suppose two men placed before him in the open air, at the distance of one hundred feet, and standing close together. If they speak in succession, and if he does not know their voices, or see their lips move, he will be unable to tell which of them it is that speaks. If a man and

nary circumstances, that the sound came from the man. The knowledge conveyed to him by his ear is, in this case, made to yield to the more forcible conviction that the language and accents of a child could come only from the child; this conviction would be still further increased if the child should use gestures, or accommodate his features to the childish accents uttered by the man. If the man were to speak in his own character and his own voice, while the child exhibited the gestures and assumed the features which correspond with the words uttered, the auditor might be a little puzzled; but we are persuaded that the exhibition made to the eyewould overpower his other sources of knowledge, and that he would believe the accents of the man to be uttered by the child we suppose, of course, that the auditor is not allowed to observe the features of the person who speaks.

In this case the man has performed the part of a ventriloquist, in so far as he imitated accurately the accents of the child; but the auditor could not long be deceived by such a performance. If the man either hid his face or turned his back upon the auditor when he was executing his imitation, a suspicion would immediately arise, the auditor would attend more diligently to the cir cumstances of the exhibition, and would. speedily detect the imposition. It is absolutely necessary, therefore, that the ventriloquist shall possess another art, namely, that of speaking without moving his lips or the muscles of his face: how this is effected, and how the art is acquired, we do not certainly know; but we believe that it is accomplished by the muscles of the throat, assisted by the action of the tongue upon the palate, the teeth, and the inside of the lips-all of them being movements which are perfectly compatible with the immutability of the lips themselves, and the absolute expression of silence in the countenance. The sounds thus uttered are necessarily of a different character from those which are produced by the organs of speech when unimpeded, and this

very circumstance gives double force to the deception, especially when the ventriloquist artfully presents the contrast to his auditor by occasionally speaking with his natural voice. If he carries in his hand those important personages Punch and Judy, and makes their movements even tolerably responsive to the sentiment of the dialogue, the spectator will be infinitely more disposed to refer the sounds to the lantern jaws and the timber lips of the puppets than to the conjurer himself, who presents to them the picture of absolute silence and repose.

Mr. Dugald Stewart, who has written an interesting article on ventriloquism in the appendix to the third volume of the "Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind," has, we think, taken a very imperfect view of the subject. He not only doubts the fact, that ventriloquists possess the power of fetching a voice from within, but "he cannot conceive what aid the ventriloquist could derive in the exercise of his art from such an extraordinary power, if it were really in his possession. He expresses himself "fully satisfied, that the imagination alone of the spectators, when skilfully managed, may be rendered subservient in a considerable degree to the purposes of the ventriloquist ;" and he is rather inclined to think, that "when seconded by such powers of imitation as some mimics possess, it is quite sufficient to account for all the phenomena of ventriloquism of which we have heard."

From these observations it would appear, that Mr. Stewart had never witnessed those feats of the ventriloquist where his face is distinctly presented to the audience-a case in which he must necessarily speak from within. But independent of this fact, it is very obvious that there are many imitations, especially those of the cries of particular animals, and of sounds of a high pitch, which cannot be performed pleno ore, by the ordinary modes of utterance, but which require for their production that very faculty, of which Mr. Stewart doubts the existence. Such sounds are necessarily produced by the throat, without requiring the use of the mouth and lips; and the deception actually depends on the difference between such sounds, and those which are generated by the ordinary modes of utterance.

The art of ventriloquism, therefore, consists in the power of imitating all kinds of sound, not only in their ordinary character, but as modified by distance, obstructions, and other causes; and also in the power of executing those imitations by muscular exertions which

cannot be seen by the spectators. But these powers, to whatever degree of perfection they may be possessed, would be of no avail if it were not for the inca pacity of the ear to distinguish the directions of sounds an incapacity not arising from any defect in the organ itself, but from the very nature of sound. If sound were propagated in straight lines, like light, and if the ear appre ciated the direction of the one, as the eye does that of the other, the ventriloquist would exercise in vain all the powers of imitation and of internal utterance. Even in the present constitu tion of the ear, his art has its limits, beyond which he must be cautious of pushing it, unless he calls to his aid another principle, which, we believe, has not yet been tried. In order to explain this, we shall analyze some of the most common feats of ventriloquism. When M. Fitzjumes imitated the watchman crying the hour in the street, and ap proaching nearer and nearer the house, till he came opposite the window, he threw up the window-sash, and asked the hour, which was immediately answered in the same tone, but clearer and louder; and upon shutting the window, the watchman's voice became less audible, and all at once very faint, when the ventriloquist called out, in his own voice, that he had turned the corner. Now, as the artist was stationed at the window, and as the sound from a real watchman must necessarily have entered by the window, the difference between the two directions was considerably less than that which the ear is unable to appreciate. Had the ventriloquist stood at one window, and tried to make the sound of a watchman's voice enter another window, he would have failed in his performance, because the difference of the two directions was too great. In like manner, when M. Alexandre introduced a boy from the street, and made him sing from his stomach the song of Malbrook, he placed his head as near as possible to the boy's chest, under the pretence of listening, whereas the real object of it was to assimilate as much as possible the true and the fictitious direction of the sounds. Had he placed the boy at the distance of six or eight feet, the real singer would have been soon detected.

We have made several experiments with a view of determining the angle of uncertainty, or the angle within which the ear cannot discover the direction of sounds; but this is not easily done, for it varies with the state of the air and of surrounding objects. If the air is per

"Bon pour la digestion," said the young Princess Esterhazy, when sent to bed by her governess without her dinner; we say the same of coffee; and hope the reader will think the same of Mocha, or the place whence the finest quality is exported.

Mocha, the coffee-drinker need not be told, is a place of some importance on the borders of the Red Sea, in that part of Arabia termed "Felix," or "Happy. "The town looks white and cheerful, the houses lofty, and have a square, solid appearance; the roadstead is al most open, being only protected by two narrow spits of sand-on one of which is a round castle, and the other an insignificant fort."

Lord Valentia visited Mocha repeatedly during his examination of the shores of the Red Sea; and his description is the most full and minute:

"Its appearance from the sea is, he says, tolerably handsome, as all the buildings are white-washed, and the minarets of the three mosques rise to a considerable height. The uniform line of the flat-roofed houses is also broken by several circular domes of kobbas, or From whose work the Engraving is copied. VOL. XVII. S

The

chapels. On landing at a pier, which has been constructed for the convenience of trade, the effect is improved by the battlements of the walls, and a lofty tower on which cannon are mounted, which advances before the town, and is meant to protect the sea gate. moment, however, that the traveller passes the gates, these pleasing ideas are put to flight by the filth that abounds in every street, and more particularly in the open spaces which are left within the walls, by the gradual decay of the deserted habitations which once filled them. The principal building in the town is the residence of the dola, which is large and lofty, having one front to the sea, and another to a square. other side of the square, which is the only regular place in the town, is filled up by the official residence of the bus kateb, or secretary of state, and an extensive serai, built by the Turkish pacha during the time that Mocha was tributary to the Grand Seignior. These buildings externally have no pretensions to architectural elegance, yet are by no means ugly objects, from their turretted tops, and fantastic ornaments in white stucco. The windows are in general

An

485

small, stuck into the wall in an irregular manner, closed with lattices, and sometimes opening into a wooden, carvedwork balcony. In the upper apartments, there is generally a range of circular windows above the others, filled with thin strata of a transparent stone, which is found in veins in a mountain be opened, and only a few of the lower ones, in consequence of which, a thorough air is rare in their houses; yet the people of rank do not seem oppressed by the heat, which is frequently almost insupportable to a European.

near Sanaa. None of these can

"The best houses are all facing the sea, and chiefly to the north of the sea gate. The British factory is a large and lofty building, but has most of the inconveniences of an Arab house.

"The town of Mocha is surrounded by a wall, which towards the sea is not above sixteen feet high, though on the land side it may, in some places, be thirty. In every part it is too thin to resist a cannon-ball, and the batteries along shore are unable to bear the shock of firing the cannon that are upon them.

"The climate of Mocha is extremely sultry, owing to its vicinity to the arid sands of Africa, over which the S.E. wind blows for so long a continuance, as not to be cooled in its short passage over the sea below the Straits Babel Man

del..

"Mocha, according to some learned natives, was not in existence four hundred years ago; from which period we know nothing of it, till the discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese in India opened the Red Sea to the natives of Europe."

Mrs. Lushington, in her interesting Journey from Calcutta to Europe, says, "the coffee- bean is cultivated in the interior, and is thence brought to Mocha for exportation. The Arabs themselves use the husks, which make but an inferior infusion. Every lady who pays a visit, carries a small bag of coffee with her, which enables her to enjoy society without putting her friends to expense.'

Mocha coffee is in smaller berries than other kinds, and its flavour is extremely fine. Hundreds of pages have been written on the origin and introduction of

coffee as a beverage. In the Coffee

drinker's Manual, translated from the French, we find it dated at the middle of the seventeenth century, and in that quarter of Arabia wherein Mocha is

situated.

* From 90 to 95 deg. Fahr, in July.

ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

(To the Editor.)

As a general reader of your entertaining miscellany, I take the liberty to correct a mistake in No. 481, relative to the Origin of the House of Commons, which is indirectly stated to have originated from the Battle of Evesham. It is true that the earliest instance on record of the assembling in parliament representatives of the people occurred in the same year with the battle of Evesham ; but it had no connexion whatever with the event of that engagement, since the parliament (to which for the first time citizens and burgesses were summoned) was assembled through the influence of the Earl of Leicester, who then held the king under his control; and the meeting took place in the beginning of the year 1265, the writs of summons having been issued in November, 1264; while the battle of Evesham, in which the Earl of Leicester was killed, did not happen till August 4, 1265, or between five and six months after the conclusion the death of Henry III. in 1272, it does of the parliament. From that period to not appear that any election of citizens or burgesses, to attend parliament, occurred. The next instance of such elec-' tions seems to have happened in the 18th of Edward I.; and the first returns to

such writs of summons extant are dated the 23rd of the same reign, since which, with a few intermissions, they have been regularly continued.

will

The correctness of these statements appear from a reference to the 4th and 5th chapters of Sir W. Betham's recently published work on "Dignities Feudal and Parliamentary," or to Sir James Mackintosh's History of England.

M.

We admit that the battle of Evesham, literally speaking, was not the origin of the House of Commons, and wish our with the name of the "modern writer' correspondent P. T. W. had furnished us

2

who has made the assertion. At the same time it must be conceded that the fall of Simon de Montfort, at Evesham, led to the more speedy consummation of the wished for object. Thus Sir James Mackintosh, History of England, vol. i. P. 236, says

"Simon de Montfort, at the very moment of his fall, set the example of

an extensive reformation in the frame of

parliament, which, though his authority was not acknowledged by the punctilious adherents to the letter and forms of law, was afterwards legally adopted by Ed