As I have already stated, ventriloquism is not a gift; it is an acquirement. It is based upon the difficulty the ear experiences in judging cor¬rectly the direction of sound, and the ease with which it may be misled in this respect. A little experiment will illustrate my meaning.
In a company of people let a willingly disposed person be blindfolded and seated in the middle of the room. Then let him try to determine the direction from which emanates the sound made by striking a coin—say a quarter or a half dol¬lar—with a key or other hard object, by some one who is eight or ten feet from him. The sub¬ject of the experiment also has to guess the dis¬tance at which the sound seems to have been made. Try it first with nothing between the coin and the subject, then have the person who holds the money piece vary the position of his hand in such a way as to form a screen between the silver and the subject, without, however, altering his position in the room. Almost in¬variably the subject will answer incorrectly, and no doubt when his bandage is removed will be greatly surprised at the gross errors in auditory perception that he has just committed. The illusion that is produced by simply varying the position of the hand in which the coin is jingled, is a good illustration of that obtained through ventriloquism.

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