it was what the chess-player was not
—really an automaton.

Professor Willis and Sir Charles Wheatstone
some years ago devoted a good deal
of attention to this matter: not, of course,
for any exhibition purposes, but to analyse
the production of vocal sounds in a scientific
way. Sir Charles showed the results of
his experiments at one of the meetings of
the British Association. Professor Willis
separated all the sounds, whether letters
or exclamations, emitted in speaking, into
three groups, which he called mutes,
sonants, and narisonants. Doctor Rush,
of Philadelphia, preferred a classification
into tonic monothongs, tonic diphthongs,
subtonics, and aspirations. Willis, leaving
consonants untried, made experiments in
the mode of producing vowel sounds by
mechanism. With an air chest, vibrating
reeds, and cavities and tubes of different
kinds, he produced a great variety of sounds.
One curious result of his experiments was,
that with the same apparatus, drawn out
gradually in length, he could produce in
succession all the vowel sounds which are
heard in such English words as "see,"
"pet," "pay," "past," "pan," "caught,"
"no," "but," "book," "boot;" we find,
in effect, that the lips protrude more and
more as this series advances; and this
supplies a noteworthy confirmation of the
views held on this matter by the
experimenter.

Some of the readers of this page may
perhaps remember Professor Faber's
automaton speaking figure, called the
Euphonia, when exhibited in London. It was
a draped bust with a wax face. Concealed
from the visitors were sixteen keys or
levers, a small pair of bellows, and numerous
little bits of metal, wood, and india-rubber.
When any word or sentence was spoken
out, either by Faber or by one of the
audience, the exhibitor mentally divided
all the syllables into as many distinct
sounds as they embodied; he pressed upon
a particular key for each particular sound,
which admitted a blast of air to a particular
compartment, in which the mechanism
was of the kind to produce the sound
required; there were thus as many pressures
as there were elementary sounds. By a
modification of the movements, whispering
could be produced instead of
speaking.

The present exhibitor, Herr Faber, is,
we believe, a nephew of the professor;
and his object has been to improve upon
the automaton which his relative
invented fourteen years ago. One good
point about it is that every part of the
mechanism is laid fairly open to the visitors.
True, a wax head or mask is used, through
the lips of which the produced sounds are
really emitted; but this mask is at intervals
removed, to show the movements of
india-rubber lips and tongue belonging to
the machine itself. The elementary sounds,
by further analysis, have been brought
down to fourteen, all others having been
found to be really compound sounds, made
up of two or more elements. A lady,
seated at a kind of key-board, has fourteen
keys or short levers before her; a sentence
is given out, in any one of two or three
languages; the lady instantly analyses the
sounds, and decides which of the keys will
produce each, or which combination will
produce the whole of them; she then plays,
somewhat in the manner of harmonium-playing,
giving the proper number of pressures on
the properly selected keys. Some sounds
are difficult to imitate, some are imitated
readily; a laugh is capitally given, and
a cry is sufficiently doleful for all required
purposes; a whisper and a sigh are also
producible. Whether the machine can cough,
sneeze, hiccup, we are not certain; but it
is admitted that a singing machine, really
and bona fide such—combining words and
music as a human singer would do—still
remains beyond the skill of any automaton
maker.

A CITY IN WAR TIME.

WHEN glittering brigades, their flags
flying and bands playing, march through
crowded streets on their way to meet the
enemy, the enthusiasm of the populace
cannot fail to be excited, and a wild, warlike
fever sends the blood coursing madly
through the veins. Steady, peaceable,
sober-minded individuals unthinkingly
shout and howl, influenced by the
surroundings, and carried away by some
vague notions of glory. Do any of these
pause to think of the horror and misery
that mark the track of an army in the
field? Do they for one moment consider
the terrible scenes, the weeping and sorrow,
which their demonstrations sanction?
Those who shout the loudest are possibly
those who remain far distant from the
strife, and in fancied security from the
terrors of war. But they do not calculate
the chances of a fiercely contested campaign.
The very regiments they now cheer