Arizona republican., 1910-09-25
THE QUEEN OF SHOW
 SEAOMTA CODONA
The Worlds Greatest Slack Wire Per former With Barnum & Bailey.
(From Glenmore Davis, Barnum &
 Bailey Press Department.)

From Glenmore Davis, Barnum &;
 Bailey Press Department)
 Stars must be. Try as you will to keep everything and everybody on a plane of easy and equal equilibrium you can't prevent something or some body from forging ahead and eventu- ally winning the victors honors. In the show business the victor is the star Ordinarily there is no star in q circus for the excellent reason that an organization as complex and so many sided cannot afford to allow one ele- ment to become dissatisfied and dis gruntled by the unnecessary elevation of an individual in another If a tra- peZe performer is featured, the entente cordial of clowns, acrobats, wire art ists. equestrians, tumblers and animal trainers is disturbed So the idea is to follow out the assertion of the Dec laration of independence, that ''all men are created equaT' and thus try to pre- serve harmony and sweet accord, but as the canny Scotsman said. the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglee." It happens that way with the amusement business in general and it happened in the biggest existing tent shOw--Barnum & Bailev's circus.
 Barnum & Bailey come to Phoenix Monday, September 26. In the early spring when they opened their season at the Madison Square Garden, New York, there was no star in the show, unless Desperate, because he is willing to risk his life twice a day for big salary, might by the uninitiated, be so described. The proprietors hadn't the slightest intention of having a star. They wanted none and therefore were perfectly satisfied to go through the long transcontinental tour without the bother of one. But the applause of the first performance literally swished a star on them and it made no differ ence whether they wanted one CT didn't They had her and there was no argu- ment about it.
 CuriOusly enough she was, pr is, one of the youngest of the 12S0 people in the circus pOpulace and unlike most of the others was and is quite unknown to the great majority of American lov- CTS of clean amusements. She is novelty. She is a girl. She is young, pretty and talented. She comes from q long line of circus forbears. These things doubtless helped to make her over night star. At any rate she is sentimentally, pictorially, artistically, and from all the other standpoints where femininity cOunts-the one big revolving white light in the present day American circus Armament.
 Senorita Victoria Codona is an 1S- year old Spanish girl who in the short period of two years during which she has been before the public has gained the international reputation of being the most expert, the most graceful and highest Salaried wire artist in the world. She has been perfecting her self for the last seven years and has never appeared in public until season before last, when she became the prin- cipaI person in her fathers circus which was touring the Spanish-speak- ing republics of South and Central America So great was her reputation before this tour ended that the pro- prietors of the Barnum & Bailey show entered into negotiations with her par ents with the result that she arrived in New York three days before the big circus began its season at the Madison Square Garden.
 On the opening night she went on and did her act on a 57-foot wire with out having rehearsed or practiced for more than two months. She started in competition with five other wire acts, but so great was the applause before she had finished that men and women who were doing stunts on the adjoining tight and slack strands or