They tell a good story of Tom Hamblin and [Stephen] Price, the old New York [theater] managers. Hamblin was endowed with a good liver, and had a great respect for his stomach. Whenever he felt good he went and ate a good meal. One day he felt in jolly spirits, and meeting Price, who at that time was a prominent manager, the two sat down to their favorite dinner of roast pig.
Hamblin at that time was runnin’ the Bowery Theatre. Price was engineering the Park, and there was a good-natured rivalry between ‘em. Tom Hamblin bet Price that at any rate he could eat more pig than Price could, and Price replied that that was very possible, as there were more pigs every night at the Bowery than at the Park.
Just then Signor Blitz, the then celebrated ventriloquist, “dropped in” accidentally on the two managers, and knowin’ ‘em both well, was invited to join ‘em in their repast. Blitz readily agreed and the three entered into a lively conversation. They determined to have some fun while Tom Hamblin got ready to carve the pig. Tom seized the carving knife and fork, in true cook-like style, and was about to plunge into the bowels of the animal before him. When suddenly there was heard a squeal, a distinct squeal; then there was heard a grunt, a distinct grunt, the grunt and squeal proceedin’ from the pig, and very wonderfully life-like, for a dead pig.
Hamblin dropped his knife and fork, Price jumped up from the table, and Blitz stared wildly about him. They pretended to be scared to death. But the most astonished person in the room was the waiter, who was ministering to the wants of the little party. His hair–what there was of it–stood on end. He uttered a yell, and droppin’ the plate of butter that was in his hand, and its contents, on the floor, he rushed out the room as if the ghost of that pig was after him.
Then there was heard another squeal, followed by another grunt, from the pig.
“This is terrible,” said Price. “Inexplicable!” cried Blitz. “Diabolical,” roared Hamblin, who went to the wall and pulled the room bell with frantic energy.
Pretty soon the proprietor appeared. “What is the matter, gentlemen?” he inquired.
“That’s what we want to know,” cried Hamlin.
“Of what do you complain, gentlemen?” asked the proprietor, rubbin’ his hands.
“Why, that pig is–is–is alive!” cried Hamblin, who was in difficulty exactly how to explain the position after all.
“A roast pig–alive?” ejaculated the utterly amazed proprietor. “Mr. Hamblin, you are jokin’.”
“I tell you that infernal pig isn’t roasted,” insisted Hamblin.
“I fear it is me you are tryin’ to roast, Mr. Hamblin,” remarked the proprietor. “Why don’t it speak now, before me?” he continued.
As if the pig had heard the remark, it now began to squeal and grunt, as it lay stretched out on the table, worse than ever, and the landlord immediately “scattered” himself as rapidly as had the waiter.
By this time, between the waiter and the proprietor, quite a hubbub had been excited, and the door of the room bein’ opened, some actors rushed in. And one of the newcomers, recognizing Blitz, the “murder was out,” and the interrupted dinner began, but under another waiter.
No amount of persuasion could induce the original waiter with the butter-plate to enter that pig-ghost haunted room again.
A little while after this episode, a somewhat similar excitement occurred at the New York Medical College. A well-known physician, a Doctor Crampton, had a dissectin’ class, and one night the class, under the doctor’s direction, proceeded to operate on two subjects, a male and a female.
There were about twenty people in the dissecting room, mostly students, with one or two outsiders. The doctor was enthusiastic about demonstrating some point, and gettin’ ready, took his dissectin’ knife to cut into the male subject.
Suddenly, in the comparative darkness, a voice–a female voice–was heard, sayin’: “Spare that man! He was a soldier and has fought for his country.”
The voice proceeded directly from the table on which lay stretched out the female subject. The subject spoke, but the students looked at each other speechless.
Then when the wonder and the awe wore off, some of the students knew that some concealed party was playin’ a practical joke on ‘em, and rushed about tryin’ to find the concealed party. They looked around under the female subject, but nobody was to be found. Then the students began to kind of persuade themselves that they must have fancied that they heard the voice. At any rate, the dissectin’ of the male subject went on without any further interruption.
Then Dr. Crampton prepared to demonstrate some point on the female subject, and the dissectin’ class accordin’ly moved in that direction. The doctor was all ready to cut into the female subject, and had just touched it with the edge of his knife when–
“Don’t touch her,” cried a deep male voice. “She is a woman. She was young and lovely once. Don’t cut a woman up.”
The words proceeded evidently from the table where the students had just left, on which what was left of the man just dissected still remained.
Again students made a rush to this latter table. They looked all under it and around it, in every corner, but found no one; nothing’.
Then suddenly the female subject was heard to say to the male: “I thank you for your kindness to a woman,” to which the male subject replied: “I was only reciprocatin’ the kindness you just manifest for me as a woman.”
This interchange of courtesies between the two dead–and not only dead but half-dissected people–proved too much for the nerves of the medical students, and the doctor himself. It was too ghastly a mockery, too terrible a joke; so pellmell from the dissecting room rushed the students. Even Dr. Crampton, who did not believe in the supernatural, was nonplussed. But the “mystery” was soon explained. Signor Blitz had been mong “the outsiders” in the dissectin’ room.
Blitz caused a deal of fun while he was in New York. Once he took a trip to Washington Market to see the sights. A woman came along and priced some fish. She seemed to have some doubts whether the fish were really fresh, and of course the dealer, an Irishman, politely but earnestly assured her that they were.
“Oh, how can you talk like that? You know we have been lyin’ here for a week waitin’ for some fool to come along and buy us.”
Such were the words, loudly uttered, heard by all the market round, which proceeded from a big cod lyin’ on the Irishman’s stall.
The Irishman was dumbfounded awhile, and then looked around to see what wag he should knock down for playin’ this joke on him, but he saw no wag, nobody that seemed like a practical joker, only the ordinary run of market people and customers.
“Who spoke?” he gasped, at last.
“Why, I did,” said the codfish, “and I spoke the truth, too, and you know it.”
Spite of his utter astonishment, the Irishman now found strength to raise his arm to strike the miraculous codfish. When suddenly another fish, harshly cried, “Don’t hit that fish–she’s a mermaid.”
“What is a mermaid,” he asked.
“Why, a woman-fish. The mother of all those that swims,” answered the other fish.
“Oh, then, if it’s a female, why, I won’t strike it. But it’s a lie, nevertheless. These fish were all brought in yesterday, and that’s the truth,” said the Irishman.
But the woman who had wanted to buy the fish was frightened out of her wits by this time; said the devil was in the fish to-day, and walked off hurriedly.
By this time, too, quite a crowd of people had collected around, and among them was an old gentleman, who, lookin’ about him, suddenly burst out laughin’ and cried out, “Oh, you rascal, it was you,” pointing to a dark-skinned little man on the outskirts of the crowd, who was none other than Signor Blitz.
Blitz now came forward and had to own up. He made it all right with the Irishman by buyin’ his fish from him, and then entertained the crowd with some samples of his skill, givin’ one of his best entertainments right there at the fisherman’s stall in Washington Market.
As a rule Blitz used his ventriloquism only for fun, and for profit in givin’ entertainments, but once his skill in that line saved him from bein’ robbed, perhaps murdered.
While he was in New York he lived awhile a good deal out of town, and he often had to pass Forty-second street, where they were putting up the big Croton reservoir. A big gang of laborers and roughs congregated around there at night time, and gettin’ full of bad whiskey, got worse than even the whiskey, and committed all sorts of depredations on the passersby.
Late one night Blitz passed along alone through this locality on his way home, and found that he was bein’ followed. He had no weapon, and even if he had, they wouldn’t have done him any good, one man against a gang.
So he bethought him of his skill in imitatin’ different voices, and it served him in mighty good stead this time.
He pretended to be about six or seven different people at once, laughed and talked like a whole lot of friends walkin’ together; and as it was dark, and when they could hear that there were several, the rowdies couldn’t see that the several were only one, the loafers came to the conclusion that Blitz was quite a party in himself; so were afraid to tackle him.
This probably saved him from serious trouble; and the very next night a young gentleman was robbed of several hundred dollars and nearly beaten to a jelly right on Forty-second street.
So that although a woman’s one tongue is often one too many, it is sometimes a good thing for a man to have several tongues–or the power of imitatin’ them.
[Editor’s notes: The autobiography of Signor Blitz is available online: Life and Adventures of Signor Blitz. Also a magician, Blitz was one of the originators of the “bullet catching” trick, which he later abandoned.]
