Dummies That Dance and Play 



Wonderful mechanical musicians that 

 smoke, bow, wink and pirouette 



TWO hundred years ago, before the 

 days of the steam engine and of 

 the factory, the inventive in- 

 genuity of a mechanic, who was bubbling 

 over with ideas, expressed itself in the 

 making of huge automatons — artificial 

 human beings crammed with clockwork 

 and capable of executing with astonish- 

 ing fidelity acts which seemed to require 

 the control of a brain. There were 

 automatons that danced minuets, auto- 

 matons that could write stilted 

 phrases in praise of a reigning 

 monarch far more clearly 

 and correctly than most 

 courtiers, and automa- 

 tons that even went 

 through the mo- 

 tions of playing a 

 game of chess. 

 They were mechan- 

 ical curiosities — 

 nothing more. 



But it must not 

 be supposed that 

 the art of making 

 mechanical dum- 

 mies is dead. 

 Indeed, it flourishes 

 more richly than 

 ever, simply be- 

 cause it has been 

 put upon a commercial basis. Only 

 once in his lifetime would an eighteenth 

 century mechanic produce a dancing or 

 letter-writing figure; it was years before 

 he completed his labors. But with the 

 aid of modern factory machinery, auto- 

 matons are turned out as easily and as 

 rapidly as automobiles. Who wants 

 them? The Coney Islands anti tiic Ivirl 

 Courts of the world. Somehow the 

 huge, automatic musical orcliestras, to 

 the acconii)animent lA which one eats 

 po()corn and marvels at the tattooed 

 man, are far too tame for the sensation- 

 loving showmen who enliven poi)ular 

 seaside resorts. The orchestrions lack 

 the luunan loucii. And so, the machinery 

 that grinds out the latest dance or the 



Painting the faces 

 musicians inT 



latest song must be adorned with 

 meciianical figures — figures clothed with 

 garish care and very lifelike in their stiff, 

 mechanical way. They beat drums, 

 dance, and juggle; indeed they behave 

 very intelligently and correctly. 



Triboulet of Paris, is the man who 

 invents many of the more ingenious 

 dimimies. That he is exceptionally 

 ingenious follows from the very nature 

 of his creations. He must be something 

 of an artist, too; for he devises 

 not only the machinery by 

 means of which figures of 

 wood and metal cut 

 capers, but creates a 

 whole setting like any 

 stage manager. 



First of all, a 

 scene is planned 

 Then a model of 

 that scene with all 

 the figures in it is 

 made in plaster or 

 in wax, and a cast 

 taken. If this piece 

 of sculpture turns 

 out satisfactorily, 

 working drawings 

 are made of heads, 

 arms, legs and the 

 like for the guid- 

 ance of shop mechanics. 



The animating mechanism of these 

 iiiige dolls is complicated enough, as our 

 illustrations prove. The clown wiio 

 grinds the organ, the pyramid of tumb- 

 lers, the monkey who plays the piano 

 with astonishing skill, are all operated 

 by s[)ring motors and are wound up like 

 any clock. The machinery within the 

 dummies is operati\eh- connected with 

 tlie music-producing mochanisni. By 

 means of starwheels (little copper plates, 

 regular or irregular in form) le\ers 

 are thrown which operate subsidiary 

 mechanism for the purpose of making a 

 dummy smoke a pipe, whistle, wink 

 mischievously, bow, and perform a 

 dozen ordinarv actions. 



of the mechanical 

 r i b o u 1 e t ' s shop 



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