AP News:

While the show goes on in other circuses around the world, Ringling is special. The size, the spectacle and the history — stretching back to P.T. Barnum and his traveling museum in the 1800s — set it apart.

One of Ringling’s two traveling circuses is scheduled to perform its final show Sunday in New York. The other closed this month in Providence, and with it, the end to a way of life few others have experienced. The Associated Press was allowed to observe it extensively.

I agree with the decision to shutter the circus, given what we know of the animals and how they are treated but I will still shed a nostalgic virtual tear for the disappearance of the circus. I fondly remember seeing a circus as a ten-year-old in the Halifax Forum. It was the first time I’d ever seen “wild” animals and it was a magical experience.