VENTRILOQUSIM.

Manawatu Times, Volume II, Issue 90, 29 August 1877, Page 3

VENTRILOQUSIM.

(From " Harper's Weekly.")

Brewster tells of a master of the art of ventriloquism, Louis Brabant, valet-de-chambre to Francis 1., whose suit was rejected by the parents of a beautiful and well dowered girl with whom he was m love.. He called on the mother, after the death of the father, again to urge his suit ; and while he was present she heard the voice' of her deceased husband expressing remorse for having rejected Louis Brabant, and conjuring her to give her immediate consent to the bethrothal. Frightened and alarmed she consented. -Brabant, deeming it desirable to behave liberally m the marriage arrangements, . but not 'having much cash at command, resolved to try whether his ventriloquism would be as efficacious with a money lending banker as it had been with the widow. Calling on the old usurer at Lyons, he managed "that the conversation' should turn upon the subject of demons, spectres, and purgatory, When suddenly many voices were "heard, 'saying that there' was no possible way of obtaining alleviation^ except by the usurer advancing money to the visitor for the* sake of ransoming Christians from the hands of the Turks. The "usurer was terrified, but too much "m love with -his gold to yield at once-. Brabant went next day and resumed the conversation when shortly were beard the voices of a host, of dead relations, aU telling the same' terrible story, and all' pointing out the only way of obtaining relief. The usurer could resist no longer i he placed ten thousand crowns m the hands of the unsuspected ventriloquist, who, of coarse, -forgot to pay it over for the ransom of. Christians either m Turkey or anywhere else. When the usurer learned how he had been duped he died of vexation.