Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/225

 Popular Science Monthly

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���All papier-mache heads look alike when they come to Miss Stevens. When they leave her they are distinctive enough to be named

Hats Are Made for Per- sonalities — Not for Heads

AFTER all, hats are , made for personal- ities. If you want to be convinced look at a col- lection of bonnets in a smart shop window. No- tice how lonesome they look hanging from hooks and supported stiffly by iron rods

Now picture to yourself how much prettier they would look if there were human heads in that window to wear them, tilted at the proper angle- transmifter

Of course shop owners have known of this problem

���Here they are, just as fresh as if they stepped out of Madame's shop in Paris. The third one from the right is not sleepy but demure

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��for years, but the\ never thought seriously of solving it — not until Frances Simpson Stevens came along with her samples of papier-mache heads and showed them just how different a hat looks when it tops a coy and demure, or a chic and mischievous face. The shop owners who took time to listen to her are glad they did now. For papier-mache heads are all the rage.

Miss Stevens is an American girl who has studied art in Italy and France. The heads which she rnakes are of as many different kinds as there are different tv^pes of personalities.

��TUBES CONNECTING DUMMY AND AS5I5TONT

���When little wooden Johnny is spoken to, Ihe "ventriloquist's" assistant has no trouble at all in hearing and answering

��This the Secret

Some Vaudeville

Ventriloquy?

LITTLE wooden / Johnny is an actor who is frequently seen on the vaudeville stage. Haven't you often won- dered how well he speaks? He sits contentedly on the lap of his sponser, and without the least trace of bashfulness, or hesitation he tells the audience whatever they want to know.

Let us look into the secret of the talking dum- my. Ventriloquism is one explanation; but a simpler one is to be found in a patent which has re- cently been granted to Charles M. Price, of Boston. From the ventriloquists' point of view, Mr. Price's idea is distinctly an improve- ment on the "regular" way. A telephone receiver is secured in the hollow head of the dummy. Connected with it are ordinary telephone wires which lead to a transmitter under the stage and speaking through this is a man. Placed in the dum- my's stomach is a telephone transmit- ler, which is connected with receivers on the assistant's head, so that he knows just when and what to answer.

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