I thought MMD subscribers might be interested to read this
account of a visit to the shop of J. H. Heller in Bern,
Switzerland, made by Julia Jellison, my American great-grandmother,
in 1873.  She was on a tour of Europe at the time, and wrote home
to her family in Maine.  The following is an extract of a letter
written from Bern on 5 September 1873.

  "We have been out this evening to what is certainly the most
remarkable thing we have seen since we have been here -- the shop of
Heller musical box manufacturer.  But you must not suppose the boxes
are common music boxes.  There are plenty of those in the shops but
it boasts greater treasures.

  "Everything in the shop 'plays music'.  You take up a tiny purse and
while you open it, it starts off a fairy tune.  A tobacco pouch performs
in the same manner.  A glass beer mug attracts your attention and while
you lift it to your mouth off it goes in a waltz.  A champagne bottle
and a decanter are similarly accomplished.  There are handsome carved
wood bread plates and when in cutting the bread you press down on them,
they play a tune.  The clocks all round the walls in beautiful designs
are also musical.

  "I wanted to look at a beautiful vase in a wooden stand which plays
eight tunes, and to do so sat down on a very handsome inlaid chair
which immediately went to performing operatic selections and did not
stop for some time.  There was a handsome vase of flowers on one of
which sat a bird who shakes his wings and turns his head and sings and
whistles and chirps in a wonderfully natural manner.  In short there
is every imaginable article made in the highest degree of elegance but
concealing somewhere the mechanism which you would never suspect.

  "But the great feature which we went to see particularly was the
orchestrion -- a great instrument, as large as an ordinary church organ
which plays in exact imitation of an orchestra.  It is most perfect and
most wonderful.  It played the Stabat Mater in a masterly manner and
you could hardly have supposed it anything but an orchestra.

  "But I could not begin to tell you all the things.  We went to
an upper room where the chairs, tables, sofas, etc., etc., were all
inlaid with elegant wood and all musical.  I never saw so many wonderful
things."

Charlotte Wathey
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

 [ See also http://www.mmdigest.com/Archives/Digests/200809/2008.09.30.01.html 
 [ -- Robbie