When talking with a Bishop recently I congratulated him on
the calibre of his voice. He conceded that it was the sort of voice that was good for such things as hawking fish and other commodities. Actually it is good for more than that, but we went on to discuss whether the human voice had deteriorated in recent generations, for few speakers of, today could be heard as some speakers at any rate in the past Were. Take John Wesley for instance. In his Journal for September 9th. 1739, be speaks of addressing 20,000 peqple on Kennington Common, and I fancy there is mention elsewhere in the Journal of more than that. I doubt whether even the Lord Privy Seal could make half that number hear in the open-air today. It was a case then, more- over, not of straining the voice for half a dozen terse sentences. but of a sustained exhortation of six minutes or more. Loud- speakers, of course, have changed al ,hat now, but Wesley had to be rand was) his own loud-speaker. JANUS.
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