www.925-1000.com

Hi,

I just had to post this little gem that originally appeared in Baldwin's Weekly Journal of the 13th September, 1823.

Hatton Garden–On Saturday William Congreve, working Goldsmith, was charged with pawning a Gold Ring, a Brooch and Seal, the property of a gentleman, who gave them him to repair.

Some gentleman of the trade stated that the prisoner was the best workman in London, and perhaps in the world, and might be an opulent man, had he but attended to his business, and could easily earn from £7 to £10 a day, and never want work ; instead of which he was idle and would not work, but spent his time smoking and drinking in public houses, with persons of the very lowest description, and whenever any work was entrusted to him, he was sure of pawning it.
As one instance of the prisoner's surprising abilities, it was stated, that some years ago he made a coach with four wheels of gold and ivory not higher than a pea, with a complete set of gold harness for two fleas, which drew the carriage ; each flea had a chain of gold round its neck consisting of 160 links, fastened on by a small gold padlock, and which they drew along on a table, and being examined hy a microscope, appeared in every respect perfect in all parts, and when he unfastened them from the coach, he fed them on his wrist, or on the back of his hand, and then put them into a small box in which there was a bit of cotton. The coach he kept in a separate box, each not bigger than a nut, and this extraordinary curiosity was shewn at the time to their late Majesties, and the principal nobility in the kingdom, as many living witnesses could attest.
A gentleman present expressed his doubt that two fleas could he able to draw a coach and harness of that size and weight; another in rejoinder remarked that a flea was the strongest living thing in nature, that it could carry a thousand times its own weight, and leap upwards of two thousand times its own length, and had an elephant the strength and activity of a flea in proportion to its bulk, it could carry the Monument on its back, or leap from Hyde Park to Greenwich.
This extraordinary curiosity the prisoner lost when in a state of intoxication at a public house in Clerkenwell Green.

William Congreve was apprenticed to Richard Clowdesly (Cloudsley). William was the son of Thomas Congreve (Grimwade 2716, 3815). Heal records Richard Cloudsley as a Jeweller of Silver Street (p.126) and Thomas Congreve as a Plateworker of Borough (p.129).

Trev.
.

And this from Jamieson's Modern Voyages and Travels.

A few years ago, a Mr. Boverick, an ingenious watchmaker, of London, exhihited to the public, a little ivory chaise, with four wheels, and all its proper apparatus, and a man sitting on the box, all of which were drawn by a single flea. He made a small landau, which opened and shut by springs, with six horses harnessed to it, a coachman sitting on the box, and a dog between his legs : four persons were in the carriage, two footmen behind it, and a postillion riding on one of the fore horses, which was also easily drawn along hy a flea. He likewise had a chain of brass, about two inches long, containing 200 links, with a hook at one end, and a padlock and key at the other, which the flea drew very nimbly along.

But what is infinitely more surprising, as it happened at a time when the arts were not to he put in competition with those of the present day. So long ago as the time of Queen Elizabeth, an exhibition was displayed before her majesty, in the year 1578, by Mark Scalion, a blacksmith, consisting of a lock, composed of eleven pieces of iron, steel, and brass, with a hollow key to it, weighing altogether but one grain of gold. He likewise made a gold chain, composed of forty-three links, to which he fastened the lock and key; and having placed this chain ahout the neck of a flea, that little animal drew it with ease. He then put the lock and key, the flea and the chain, all into a pair of scales, and they weighed together one grain and a half.

Trev.
.