The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-15
LIVES OF CIRCUS PEOPLE

simple devotion to their own is the
very big thing in a very narrow life,
and 1t is very beautiful. Take, for in
stance, Victoria Codona, and her case
Is a representative one. Her grand
fathers and grandmothers. on both sides
for two generations. have been circus
performers. Her mother has left the
circus to bring up the younger children
at school in Texas, the father is no
longer equal to the active work neces-
sary to performer, So dressed up like
rajah, he rides on an elephant in the
parade. His 16-year-old son does
trapeze act and both he and old Codona
stand under Victoria when she does her
slack-wire act to catch her should she
fall
In the same circus her aunt does a
trapeze speciality and her UNCLE Is an
acrobat. Until she was II years of age
the girl went to school, but was unhappy
and broke away to begin her life work.
There was no other thought in her own
mind or that of her family that she
would be anything else than a circus
performer. In winter quarters she tried
the trapeze tumbling, horseback riding,
and then one day while practicing
stunts" with the children of the other
performers she discovered that her
meter In life was the slack wire. She
she was 10. At the beginning she was
like the other slack wire performers,
but gradually she threw aside the ball
ancing pole and the parasol and the
other paraphernalia that her fellow
workers found necessary. In making
his rounds the genius of circus perform
ers had touched her with his wings and
had wiled that she should be the great
Codona.
The managers OF the hippodromes and
circuses at Moscow and Paris and Ber-
lin and London who have their scouts
scattered all over the world heard of
the girl who walked on a wire as other
mortals walked on land, and as her
fame spread, SO her salary increased,
greatest show on earth and the chief
breadwinner of the Codona family. None
of the press agents knew the girl. and
they seemed to have very wholesome
dread, not so much of Victoria herself
as of the husky athletic brother and
the Spanish looking father with the
hooked nose and the fierce, brstlins
mustache. Indeed, it was not until I
appealed to the highest authority-the
owner OF the circus-that / met the
queen of the slack wire. She had great
masses of tawny colored hair, a pink
complexion and big eyes that shifted
from gray to blue. Eer appearance gave
one the impression of the Spaniard, al
though she had SO few of the common
characteristics. She wore cheap tur-
quoise earrings and turquoise brooch.
and on one slim finger there was little
circlet of small diamonds. Her manner
was very shy and as she CROPPED about
for the proper English words with which
to answer our questions, she swing con-
fusedly from side to side on her high
heeled slippers. Perhaps it was the array
of managers and press agents. or, perhaps
lit was her inability to understand our
questions or why we asked her questions
at all, BIT know she suddenly smiled
pleasant and unexpected goodbye and
ran off to play with some little French
children In a neighboring box
There was a fanfare of trumpcts and
we knew that the rehearsal for tho pa
rade, that always opens the show, was
about to begin.