A French conjuror of the first of the present century, was Comte, who was as famous for his ventriloquil powers as for his legerdemain. Many anecdotes are current among continental conjurors of the consternation which Comte created on various occasions by the exercise of his powers as a ventriloquist off the boards. He once overtook near Nevers a man who was beating an overladen ass, and, throwing his voice in the direction of the poor brute’s head, reproached the fellow for his cruelty, causing him to stare at the ass for a moment in mingled surprise and awe, and then take to his heels. On another occasion, being in the marketplace of Mâcon, he inquired the price of a pig which a peasant woman had for sale, and pronounced it extortionate, a charge which the owner, with much volubility, denied. “I will ask the pig,” said Comte, gravely. “Piggy, is the good woman asking a fair price for you?” “Too much by half,” the pig seemed to reply. “I am measled, and she knows it.” The woman gasped and stared, but she was equal to the occasion. “Oh! the villain,” she exclaimed. “He has bewitched my pig! Police, seize the sorcerer!” The bystanders rushed to the spot, but Comte slipped away as quickly as he could, and left the affair to the intelligence of the police. On one occasion the possession of this strange power was the means of saving Comte’s life. He was denounced by some ignorant Swiss peasants in the neighborhood of Friburg, as a sorcerer, set upon and beaten with sticks, and was about to be thrown into a limekiln, when he raised such a horrible yell, which appeared to proceed from the kiln, that the fellows dropped him, and fled precipitately from the spot. Miller, whose strange adventures and vicissitudes were related by himself in his “Life of a Sowman,” was a conjuror of the fair-frequenting class during the greater part of his varied life. He relates an amusing anecdote of a failure he once had in performing the common trick of cooking a pancake in a hat. He was performing before a private party at Kelso, and among the company was an elderly gentleman, who sat close to the operating table, and caused some discomposure to Miller and his attendant by the closeness of his observation of their motions, and the grimaces and chucklings in which he indulged whenever he discovered, or thought he had discovered, the mode in which any of the tricks were performed. The pancake trick is done by secretly introducing into the hat a ready cooked and hot pancake in a tin dish, and above this a gallipot. The batter is prepared, in sight of the spectators, in a similar gallipot, just as much smaller than the other as to fit closely into it. The contents of the smaller gallipot are poured into the larger one, and both are withdrawn together; and the conjuror, after pretending to cook the pancake over a lamp or candle, presents it on the tin dish.