Greatest Show

In Manhattan it is the circus, not the crocus, which announces that spring has come. Punctually last week, the great Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey troupe took over Madison Square Garden with fanfare. In addition, there was a not unusual threat of a strike, and, day before the circus opened, some fine frontpage jungle violence. Just before rehearsals, an Indian leopard killed the only performing snow leopard in captivity. He also cut up Trainer Alfred Court's face, and another cat got loose and scared the daylights out of a reporter. On top of all this, John Ringling North, the Founders' nephew and circus' boss, announced his engagement to beauteous French Cinemactress Germaine Aussey.

This year's circus is the best ever, for with war on in Europe, the new show boasts twelve acts labeled FIRST TIME IN AMERICA. Some of the best : > Alfred Court's wild animals -- not just lions & tigers, but harder-to-handle assorted jaguars, panthers, pumas, leopards.

Court trains the beasts by wrapping hunks of meat around his chest and waist, so that if they get hungry they won't nibble off him.

> Mlle Elly Ardelty, an aerialist not only of daring but of great chic who stands on her head inside a swinging trapeze.

> Rola Rola, a handsome Brazilian couple who perform on a thin board on a roller (see cut).

> The Great Mei Fu, who, foot-over-foot, walks up an inclined rope to the top gallery, then whizzes down it backwards.

Although Circusman North was out to beat his uncles at their own game (the tent this year is blue and the prop men wear berets), he was not so inexperienced as to change the basic rules of that game.

The freaks still parade, the clowns cavort, the chariots race, the elephants lumber, the band blares out.

That customers approved of both the new circus and the old was made plain from an unprecedented volume of clapping, whistling, cheering--even though on opening night the Greatest Show on Earth was hardly over before the clock struck one. It still was the Greatest.

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