Fleas as Circus Performers

 MOST REMARKABLE ACROBATS IN THE WORLD ARE PROF. AUFRICHTIG’S COLLECTION OF TRAINED INSECTS

Training a collection of fleas to do unheard of stunts for the edification of an audience is the latest sensation in the art of training members of the animal kingdom.

Herr Aufrichtig is the man who has succeeded in furnishing a new thrill to the patrons of the White City, and his $30,000 worth of trained fleas are causing big audiences nightly to look in wonder.

Herr Aufrichtig is the greatest fleaologist in the world. He has more than 300 in his collection, and of these some two score are trained to do the most difficult thing imaginable – things, in fact, that are utterly unbelievable to the person who has not witnessed them.

They draw chariots. Run a “merry-go-round”, fight a duel, walk a tight rope. Jump through a hoop, juggle a ball in the air and roll a wheelbarrow. More astonishing than this, however, they go through these performances at the command of their master and display a degree of intelligence that is amazing.

Herr Aufrichtig’s collection of fleas is very valuable and is being added to constantly.

Most American fleas, says Herr Aufrichtig, are unintelligent and not capable of accepting training. Also, except for a few in this country that come from far north of Canada, they are short lived. And even if captured while quite young frequently they are gathered to their fathers before they can be trained well enough that they may be brought before an audience with any assurance that they will not flunk during the performance.

It takes from one to three years to train a flea to perform, says the proprietor, and the degree of intelligence, ability and agility shown by individuals is as varied as that encountered by human performers. As the average life of the European flea is only six to nine years, Herr Aufrichtig must keep at work training new performers.

He has a number of flea catchers in Europe – all of them women – and at Hamburg has an agent to whom all fleas captured are shipped, and who has just now sent over the new members of the flea menagerie. The Hamburg agent sends them across the Atlantic, while the proprietor of the circus is on this side in charge of waiters on the big liners.

On the trip across the fleas must be fed five times. As they do not prosper on any old sort of a human, and as there are many persons on whom a flea cannot possible subsist a great many die en roué.

It takes six months t train a flea to walk. All of Herr Aufrichtig’s fleas walk – in fact, only one or two of them is allowed to jump at all. Jumping is am hereditary habit with fleas, says Herr Aufrichtig, and if you allow them to jump after having taught them to forget that innate desire they soon lapse and become jumpers altogether again. Only an extremely intelligent flea can be made to understand that walking is an accomplishment. And that if he is allowed the privilege of jumping at all it is only on certain occasions and solely for amusement.

First in the training of a flea acrobat – and before any attempt is made to teach him to walk, Herr Aufrichtig puts him in chains. And since all a flea lives for is to eat, the hardship of being in chains is greatly minimized to dine sumptuously and often from the fair arm of Fraulein Annie, Herr Aufrichtig’s niece, who is also his partner in the flea circus business.

Chaining a flea – “harnessing” him, Herr Aufrichtig calls it – is a delicate business. He offers $1,000 to anyone who will do the job in the manner and with the skill shown by himself. Tiny gold chains are used, and these Herr Aufrichtig fastens about the neck of the flea. He does not use tweezers or other implements, nor does he use a glass during he performance.

Once the flea is chained, he is taught to walk through a glass tube, and this is kept up for months before the flea sees the sense of it. Some of them never learn, but persist in spite of the – to a flea – heavy chains which weight them down, in dancing and buzzing about in a most provoking manner.

Perhaps one of the duellists has become aged and inaccurate on wielding the paper foils, so the circus man pouts the new flea “on the mill”. The “mill” is a little mechanism so arranged that its wings – like those of an old Dutch windmill – fly about promiscuously and the flea must catch them in order to keep from falling. Months and months of hard work gives the performer a sort of a mechanical understanding which he later utilizes in the broadsword combats which delight the circus audience.

This might seem a trying ordeal to the flea, but it is doubtful if the little creature’s patience is tried to anything like the degree of that of his trainer. For Herr Aufrichtig does not merely put the flea on the “mill” and leave him to work out his own salvation. He stands by and, watching the evolutions of the “mill” closely, directs the flea in a loud commanding voice to go through the sword manual.

Again, if the newly initiated flea having learned to walk seems active on his feet, perhaps he is put to work to learn the ball juggling act. This performance consists in the flea taking in his “hands” a small ball made of the pith of elder, and holding it upwards he turned it and juggles it just as you have seen a performer in a human circus keep a ball in the air with his feet. While this is interesting and attracts the favourable attention of the audience, the act which closes it is the most remarkable.

This flea has been attached by Herr Aufrichtig to a small point at the end of a stick somewhat smaller than an ordinary lead pencil. During the juggling act this stick is placed in an upright position, so the flea, fastened by his back, is in the proper position to juggle. He has first been placed within reach of the ball, however, and he picks it up of his own initiative and holds it until placed in the proper position to begin his “turn”.

After the flea finishes juggling the ball Aufrichtig announces that he will hold the stick in a parallel position and that, at his command, the flea will throw the ball out on the table. And this he proceeds to do. The ball flies out from the flea’s grasp and carries a distance of a foot to 18 inches.

“Has a flea brain?” repeated Herr Aufrichtig aggressively, when that question was put to him. “It has the most acute and active brain of any living creature. And its hearing is marvellous. I would not begin to estimate the distance at which it could hear an ordinary sound were its ears as large as a man’s and their present efficiency increased in proportion.”

Because of this he keeps a mechanical organ in his circus room, and whenever a particularly difficult performance is staged he starts that organ or has an assistant play the zither. He declares that the fleas immediately begin to display an activity that could not be brought about in any other manner. Music is always furnished for the “ballet” dance, the duel and the juggling and ball discharging acts.

For his races Herr Aufrichtig hitches his fleas to miniature chariots made of gold. There are a dozen or more of these. Six fleas haul the larger ones, then there are fours, pairs, tandems and one or two pulled by exceptionally large and strong individual fleas.

Herr Aufrichtig has been in the flea business 41 years. Previous to that he was a bareback rider in a circus.

He has circled the globe many times. He has visited all the countries of Europe, going to China, India and the furthermost lands. Thirty years ago he gave an exhibition before the Sultan of Turkey’s harem, and he has appeared before practically all the crowned heads. Herr Aufrichtig has two gold medals, one presented by the Empress of Germany, the other by the Queen of Wurtemburg.

Herr Aufrichtig claims to have been one of the principals in the story of “The Princess and the Flea” – a gem long since enshrined in both the poetry and prose of flea literature – of which any large library furnishes many volumes. According to the flea circus manager, he was giving a performance of his fleas before a certain royal audience when one of the performers named Napoleon, long since deceased, disappeared. After racking his brain in order to discover some way to continue his particular act without the assistance of the absent star performer, Herr Aufrichtig suddenly substituted another.

But the king was much interested in the military manoeuvres that were a part of the scheduled performance and demanded that it continue. Whereupon Herr Aufrichtig was forced to tell him that Napoleon had disappeared. Being pressed, he finally told his royal interlocutor that Napoleon had taken refuge on the person of Princess H. The Princess was ordered by her father to produce Napoleon, and she retired for that purpose.

Presently the Princess returned with a flea which she placed on the field of battle, but the military movement still lagged. The King was now angry and denounced Herr Aufrichtig as an impostor, saying that the fleas could not be made to carry out the program. Then Herr Aufrichtig, to defend himself, was forced to confess that although the Princess had returned a flea, it was not the accomplished Napoleon. To convince his royal patron he showed him the bogus Napoleon minus his distinguished gold neckband. Another search on the part of the Princess proved Herr Aufrichtig’s contention to be correct – she had produced the wrong flea.

When accused of having appropriate this story from ancient flea literature Herr Aufrichtig grew indignant and asserted that he has absolute proof of the correctness of his statements. The Princess, he says, is still alive, although advanced in years, and one of the best known women in Europe. He declined, however, to name her, saying that he would rather have his assertions doubted than bring undue notoriety to the royal personage in question.