Experiments may be made by means of making these respective parts rigid which will establish the correctness of these assertions. These experiments can also be made by the application of mechanical pressure. When pressing your hand or fingers against your throat you will be unable to speak, though it will not prevent you from singing. By pressing them against the back of your neck you will be unable to sing, though you may speak. By pressing them against either side of your neck you will be unable to recite, though you may both speak and sing. The slightest pressure, even, will produce these results. Let me remark, however, that unless the _thought_ of the performance accompanies it, a mere mechanical pressure will not suffice. That _thought_, improperly exercised, is the cause of stuttering or stammering, obtains from the fact, that the utterance of the singer, elocutionist or actor, being a matter of memory, and not of original thought, is _not_ subject to these troubles; though the utterance of the same persons while speaking, and in so doing, _thinking_, may be subject thereto. Not appreciating its significance, I used to laugh with everybody else at the anecdote of a stuttering boy in an apothecary shop, who had been sent down after some article in the cellar. Returning, pale, trembling, and _stammering_, his master cried out, "Sing, sing!" whereupon he delivered himself thus: "Der spiritus im keller brennt, Und alles steht in flammen." ("The spirits, master, are aflame, And all things are a-burning.") In a recent number of _Cosmopolis_, Prof. Max Müller said: "Charles Kingsley was a great martyr to stammering, and it was torture to him to keep conversation waiting until he could put his thoughts into words. Singularly enough, at church, Kingsley did not stammer at all in reading or speaking; but on his way home from church he would say to one with whom he was walking: 'Oh, let me stammer now; you won't mind it!'" While his thoughts were concentrated on his subject, which had probably been elaborated beforehand and was expressed in rhythmic language, besides being obliged to speak slowly and deliberately so as to be heard and understood, he experienced no difficulty. Still, he was under a restraint. As soon as he was by himself again, he commenced to think impulsively, as probably was his habit, and gave vent to a torrent of thoughts, which overleaped each other like waters rushing through a broken dam.