Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; London (England) -- Description and travel
‘Messieurs et Mesdames, I present to you at this Fair, as a mark of my
confidence in the people of this so-renowned town, and as an act of
homage to their good sense and fine taste, the Ventriloquist, the
Ventriloquist! Further, Messieurs et Mesdames, I present to you the
Face-Maker, the Physiognomist, the great Changer of Countenances, who
transforms the features that Heaven has bestowed upon him into an endless
succession of surprising and extraordinary visages, comprehending,
Messieurs et Mesdames, all the contortions, energetic and expressive, of
which the human face is capable, and all the passions of the human heart,
as Love, Jealousy, Revenge, Hatred, Avarice, Despair! Hi hi! Ho ho! Lu
lu! Come in!’ To this effect, with an occasional smite upon a sonorous
kind of tambourine—bestowed with a will, as if it represented the people
who won’t come in—holds forth a man of lofty and severe demeanour; a man
in stately uniform, gloomy with the knowledge he possesses of the inner
secrets of the booth. ‘Come in, come in! Your opportunity presents
itself to-night; to-morrow it will be gone for ever. To-morrow morning
by the Express Train the railroad will reclaim the Ventriloquist and the
Face-Maker! Algeria will reclaim the Ventriloquist and the Face-Maker!
Yes! For the honour of their country they have accepted propositions of
a magnitude incredible, to appear in Algeria. See them for the last time
before their departure! We go to commence on the instant. Hi hi! Ho
ho! Lu lu! Come in! Take the money that now ascends, Madame; but after
that, no more, for we commence! Come in!’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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