A FLEA ENTERTAINMENT.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 35, 1 October 1869, Page 3

A FLEA ENTERTAINMENT.

(From tlia London Daily News.) At tlio corner of M.-iddox street and Regent street a young is conducting an exhibition of a very curious character. He is the proprietor of a stud of performing fleas; or to U3s t!ia words of his owrj. ai^iiquiic^-

meat, of " train-1 apterous insects, the only specimens of the articulata ever taught to perform." We went to the sight, fearing that our sense of refine* ment would be shocked, but found upon entering the room a tasteful] y decorated apartment, and several ladies with their children admiring the household foes which a wholesome sense of duty teaches them generally to crush. Mr. Kitchingman, the exhibitor, has toiled hard and long to bring his exhibition to its present successful condition. Like the everlasting cookery-book hare, the fleas have had first to be caught,then shipped hither from Russia, Belgium, and France, or elsewhere, and afterwards subjected to a training in which severity and tenderness are pretty equally proportioned. Without going so far as the exhibitor, who believes the little wretches he protects has intellects, and says he has seen their brains, we mustconfess our astonishment at the novel figure they are made to cut, although in an age Ukc this on :- ought not to be amazed at such a trifle as the spread of education among fleas. The insects in Regent street draw carriages, act as tug to a man-of-war, fire off a gun, per--f orui on tne tigiit-ropc, draw a bucket out of an imaginary well, leap, and swing, and execute other evolutionsupon a white smooth table. These things, however, are not done by thefieas as by other beings. The voluntary system is quite ignored, and the wonder of the exhibition is rather the marvellous delicacy of the machinery than the genius of performers. Mr. Kitchingman, after years of patience, has perfected a set of Lilliputian articles, designed and made by his own hands, that are of themselves of the rarest kind, and the visitor will soon perceive that they are most ingeniotJsly made for the fleas, and not the fleas for them. Taking the raw, untutored, flea between his finger and thumb, with a touch that- few could command, the proprietor fastens by a peculiar noose a fine hair round the insect s* trunk, leaving the two ends standing an inch or so above the back, like a couple of overgrown feelers. These hair ends are fastened to the apparatus, generally by insertion in the split of a tiny straw, and this difficult operation having been done without injury to wind or limb, toe narnsbSod captive id utiaclied to * the particular service for which its talents fit it. The Russian and Belgian fleas are favorite pupils, but the English breed, after much starving: and training, become toe foiighebt and best. We observed one on Saturday, fretting in the collar very painfully, and drawing his ivory car vath a hop, skip, and jump, instead of the steady, easy, trot, which the Russian or B* >gian affected. Perhaps it was too much-to expect a right-minded flea to be docile under the circumstances ia the prince of ruddy children and blonde ladies. One or two of the performers were pointed out as the inheritors of a green old age; they had lived nine months, and were now, in t;;e course of nature, nearing the day of their death. Three or four months nay weeks however, are considered a hard age for a flea to live. Mr. Kitchingman, wi+h touching affection, allows his fleas to live out of himself, which is nothing but fair, seeing that he iives out of them. Every day, when something attempted and something done has earned them a night's repose, he feeds his flock upon the back of his hand, puts each individual between two blankets, and the whole layer into a box, where they slumber secure out of harm's way, and ought to be able to rise in the morning with clear consciences towards all mankind. The untrained reserve stock (two or three hundred) are kept in a stoppered bottle full of flannel wool. The exhibitor gives his visitors much information upon this special branch of natural h story.