Boys' Life Feb 1975

The cub scout magazine, Boys' Life had a nice little article back in Feb 1975 on making a "No Flea - flea circus". It describes making a stage and how to perform three tricks; raising a telegraph pole, high dive and a strong flea pulling a railway wagon. It also has an article on how to dress like a ring master which would be an idea costume for a flea circus performance.

Chuck Caputo Electronic Flea Circus

Chuck Caputo is quite well known as a flea circus maker as he's been making them for some years now. I've seen his circuses appear on Ebay and raise a good value even second hand.

Chuck's latest circus is electronically controlled and includes a good selection of acts including a very patriotic flag raising and a novel firing cannon.

Children's Festival

Madame Tiptop and Felix Flip-flop have been performing their flea circus at the Children's Festival in Belfast. The flea circus from Cahoots NI theatre is well known for it's attendance at such events and for visiting local hospitals.

Industrious Fleas in the news

News just in.... well from 1832 so I'm a little late.

Thanks to the British Library British Newspapers 1800-1900 archive, I've been chasing down those pesky Industrious Fleas. The great advantage of newspapers as a source is that they are dated and detail locations too. There is one drawback which is that the papers of the time liked to print snippets from other regional papers so there's a bit of duplication between the articles. I'm currently working through 40+ articles and will be updating the L.Bertolotto Flea Circus History page over the next few month.

A large range of newspapers have reported on L. Bertolotto's Industrious Fleas over the years, in locations such as:

Star Inn, Oxford,
No 4. Castle Street, Liverpool,
Exchange Ante-Room, Manchester,
Gallery of Arts Drawbridge, Bristol,
Assembly Room, Exchange, Belfast,
The Crown Hotel, High Street, Portsmouth,
The Subscription Rooms, Exeter,
11 Castle Square, Brighton,
6 Lune Street, Preston,
Somerset Gallery 151 Strand, London
Bordelese Gallery, London?

A couple of the adverts have an amusing poem.

The Fleas, the Fleas, the merry Fleas:
Let us flea to see the Fleas;
Over land and over seas,
The cry is, Have you seen the Fleas?



The articles also report of Giuseppe Paris at 63 Prince Street Edinburgh in 1834 and Kitchingman with a performance on the corner of Maddox Street and Regent Street in 1869.

Some interesting tangents to investigate too such as a court report on "Mr Augustus Rynam, who previous to 1854 kept on exhibition called the Industrious Fleas" and a few red herrings such as a ship called "Bertolotto" from Odessa.

Flea Circuses and alternative events

Flea Circuses are often associated with carnivals, freak shows or other colourful forms of entertainment. For example, Flea Circuses have been performed at Huberts Museum and Coney Island.

A recent example of this was Ms. Karla Chameleon's Flea Circus at the Steampunk themed event "The Great Exhibition" from "White Mischief". Where Ms. Chameleon walked around like a cigarette girl, entertaining the crowds with a portable circus.



Comming up next month, is Indulgent Decadence a Burlesque night at the Red Shoes Theatre in Elgin. Circus Maximus has been asked to perform at the event.

The flea - Harold Russell - 1913

Via a search on the Wellcome Trust Library and then google books and the internet archive, I discovered a quite detailed book called "The Flea" by Harold Russell.



As well as a detailed record of the internal workings of the flea, in the chapter on Human Fleas there is a section on performing fleas. There are a items of particular interest to would be performers. The first is that the author suggests that the fleas are harnessed with silk threads not wire, the use of blotting paper so that their feet do not slip when pulling carriages and the rotating pill box for breaking the fleas jumping habits.

This account of a despised and detested group of insects would be very imperfect if it did not mention those educated or performing fleas which have evoked so much astonishment among people who have watched them. It will be best to say, at once, that the fleas are not educated and that the performance can only be attributed to their desire to escape. It is stated that a performing flea may be broken of the habit of jumping by being put in a pill-box with glass sides which is made to revolve like a lottery wheel. A short course of this treed-mill teaches the flea that the objectionable practice of hopping is useless and exhausting. It is said that the life of performing fleas averages eight months which seems surprising. They are fed every few days, and the trainers delight in showing the punctures on their arms where the swarm of pets has been fed.
Performing fleas are first of all securely fastened, and this is nine-tenths of the secret, and the art of education. A very fine silk fibre is put round the body and knotted on the back. The flea may then be cemented to some movable or immoveable object. It may pull a coach by being attached to a pole made of a bristle. A little paper object stuck on its back is tamed by courtesy an equestrian or a ball-dress. The lively imagination of the spectators is of greet he1p. The strength of a flea is wonderful, and on being placed on a sheet of blotting-paper, so that the hooks of the feet get a bold, the coach travels at a fine pace. In the intervals of the performance the coach is turned over, and the performer with its feet in the air does not get exhausted with needless struggles. Or else the fleas are fixed head uppermost, with their legs extended horizontally, to an upright wire driven into the table. Ladies have fans of tissue paper gummed to their limbs. Gentlemen are in the same way supplied with swords made out of fine segments of wire. When two swordsmen are placed opposite each other and the table is knocked they move their limbs. The swords then clash by chance, and we have a representation of a duel not much worse than may be seen in provincial or even London melodrama.
More wonderful are dancing fleas, for there we have, a real representation of a ball-room filled with waltzers. The orchestra of fleas, all securely flied with cement, is placed above a little musical-box. The music proceeds from the box, but the vibrations make the fleas gesticulate violently over their musical instruments. The dancers spin round on the ballroom floor. The couples are fastened by a rigid bar opposite each other, so that they cannot touch or part. Each is pointed in an opposite direction, and tries to run away. A rotary motion ensues which, to the spectators if not to the fleas, is very like waltzing

Ref: The Flea - Harold Russell - 1913

Two miniature museumes, Guadelest, Spain

The metro reported yesterday morning of museums in the Benidorm area of Spain. One of them was the "Micro Gigantic" in Guadelest. When I searched for more details, I discovered that there are actually two museums with miniature exhibits in Guadalest. The Micro Gigantic and the Museo de Micro Miniatures which also has a collection of interesting items.



Obviously the exhibit that attracted my attention was the Flea riding a bicycle along the edge of a seed but they have a range of other marvelous miniature exhibits. Unless there are several fleas riding bicycles in existence, I believe this one to be the creation of Willard Wigan.

A selection of paintings by Goya such as 'fusilamiento 3 de Mayo' painted on a grain of rice and 'The Naked Maja' painted on the wing of a fly. There is also a sculpture of a camel passing through the eye of a needle, a full Bible inscribed on a piece of hair and a violin scaled to be played by an ant.

Miniatures Museum: Calle Iglesia, 5
Micro-Gigantic Museum: Calle del Sol, 2

Guadalest town website
Miniature museums around Europe.
More Micromini exhibitions.
Works by Willard Wigan.