The negro minstrels excite much laughter by a burlesque anatomical
lecture upon a ludicrous skeleton drawn on a slate or blackboard.
[Illustration: Fig. 147.]
Having traced the figure with chalk, after a short introductory speech,
proceed with the lecture, and at the end express amazement that the
audience should not have been impressed with the solemnity of your
discourse, you, of course, being unaware that the drawing has
mysteriously become animated.
You suddenly perceive that the figure has taken to dancing, and,
inexpressibly shocked, you endeavour to quell its Terpsichorean
propensities. Finding that in vain, you cut the Gordian knot by seizing
the board, and running out of the room with it, despite the vigorous
kicking of the anatomy.
The next instant you return, and, making your bow, say gravely:
“Ladies an’ gemblemen: If de skillingtums ack dis yere way wid de
perfessers, what will dey do when de medical men is all lady doctors?”
And exit.
_Explanation._—The black board has both sides alike. On the one not seen
at first by the audience a skeleton, drawn on black cardboard, is cut
and pinned up by the head. The thread connecting the limbs at the joints
and the pulling string should be black.
After making a few chalk marks on the board, you turn it and chalk the
edges of the skeleton, the limbs, the ribs, &c., without moving it. Then
take the pulling string in your left hand, held behind the board, whilst
your right gesticulates and points out the osteological peculiarities,
and set the figure dancing as you please.
If made of metal, strings can be adjusted to shake the head, unfold the
fingers, &c.
[Illustration: Fig. 148.]
Dolls with ball-and-socket joints to the limbs make excellent
marionettes. Suspend them as in figure 148.
The rod A is held in the left hand, and the different threads are worked
with the right fingers. If the figure has many articulations and threads
to control their movements, hang the stick on a hook at its centre, and
use both ends.
A proscenium is constructed, with “a scene flat” set far enough back to
let your hands play freely in the intervening space.