Omaha daily bee., 1885-01-08
SHARON as A
Some of His Mcthods-uo,v He
Looked and Acted in Company.

bA'NNNN ~ ANNttl III NOIlDnn nv.
WASHINGTON, January sharon, tn
San francisco millionaire, who has ius
been defeated in the divorce proceeding
brought aga INST him, has been in Wash.
ington for one or two winters. He wen
through the form of pretending to sery,
ono term in the senate, but the fnoncio
troubles upon the Pacific coast, ~followin,
the failure of the Bank of California, ken.
him occupied there. For two winters q
of his term he never put in an appearance
and it was only during the last year OF
two of his service that he made any pre.
tense of performing his senatorial duties
He was one of the smallest and most
insignificant looking men who eve,
served in the senate. Not ever
the reputat ON of his millions could
clothe this cheap looking man with a sem.
blance of dignity. He Is about five feet
six inches in height, while his figure is as
poor and thin rs if he were half-starved
His head is very small, even for his dimin,
utive figure. There is n thin, struggling
growth of hair smoothed over his yellow.
ish-brown skull, and down over his low,
cunning forehead, This hair is a rusty
gray-brown. His face is thin, sunken
and smooth shaved, with the exception of
a small, scant, grayish- brown mustache,
which. curls..a at the corners of his mouth.
His eyes are rs black and sparkling as
those of a ferret, and are lighted up with
an expression of vulgar cunning and obi
Gus dissatisfaction. His nose is con-
structed upon the same meager scale as the
other features of his face. 1t is n small
pug, and no amount of wine, however gen
erous in quality, could fire the livid pallor
of this nose up to the color of life.
There was something almost atrocious
in the aggressive vulgarity of the coarse
little man. His dress was thoroughly in
harmony with his general appearance.
He was very fond of long, shiny broad
cloth coats, about three sizes too large for
him, brocaded waistcoats, black, blue and
red velvet c~ravats, and yellow gray
trousers. He used so wear boots made
by some San Francisco shoemaker which
in themselves were cufiosities. They had
very long legs and were 50 short in the
sole that the uppers were pressed out be-
You'd them in the wearing. The heels
were very high and were pushed SO far
forward as to be under the center of the
foot. The idea was to give the appear
ance of a very small foot. The idea may
have been all right, but the result gave
the senator the appearance of having two
club feet.
Like many men of shallow minds and
small education, Sharon aspired to talk in
the deeply philosophical vein. While he
never had the courage to do more in the
senate than to read an occasional SPEECH
from laboriously prepared manuscript, in
private he was dlsagteeably aggressive in
asserting most o~:acularly the widest kind
OF nonsense obout religion and politics.
When he first came to Washington to
stay he was invited out to a good many
dinners. But very soon the principal
dinner -givers of the town began to grow
shy of him. At a dinner given in the
interest of Justice Fields alleged candi-
dacy for the presidency in 1880, Sharon
vas a guest. The genial host intended to
turn the general conversation toward the
latter part of the dinner to the subject of
the resplendent virtues of Justice Field,
but after the fourth purse Sharon began
with the cackle and snort which were the
usual signals employed by the senator to
indicate that he was about to speak. He
selected Buddhism as his topic, and with
out a word of knowledge of the subject or
of excuse, he drifted out into a two hours
snarling s%oliloquy upon that subject. Of
course Justice Field s merits were never
reached. And the p'ice of a good dinner
for fifteen persons, at $40 a plate, had to
ha ctorral I'm tn tho nrofit on1 1nsc ciln of
the Field campaign fund.
Sharon was here last summer for the
purpose of consulting with John B.
Alley, of Massachusetts. Alley is cup
posed to be worth $4,000, 900. He Is
Is a physical dwarf, and thinks of
nothing but his money. Imet these
two gentlemen in the parlor of q prom
inent lawyer here, and had the pleasure
of listening to the conversation of the
two great capitalists. For one straight
half hour they did nothing but banter
each other as to the amount they were
really worth. Sharon insisted that
Alley was worth twenty millions. Alley
blushed like a schoolgirl RI with her first
lover at the idea, and swore that he was
not worth more than hall of that. AT
this Sharon would smoker and snort in
the most contemptuous disbelief in
Alleys modesty. And then Alley would
back with the charge that Sharon
was worth at least twenty-five millioDu,
They seemed to take as much delight in
brandiehing the words dollars and mil"
lions as If their mere sound was sufficient
to make up q most interesting conversa-
ton.