The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-04-05
Sailor Side of the Ring Hero's
Life.
FAR MORE INTERESTING THAN
THE PUGILIsTIC SIDE.
He Has Had His Share of Expert
ences While Sailing the Seas
over-Has Visited Many Lands
Shipwrecked OFF the Coast of
Australia.

| character than his prize-hghtine
double. AS a seafaring type he is
something of a romantic echo of wind
and tide, "reminiscences that lose by
! contrast with the flesh and bone per-
sonage of the ring.
If he could yarn a little about his
stake of $4,000 being obtained as blood
money on some adventurous cruise the
scrapping tar might prove a good sub
| ject for a nautical story teller to trans
fer to his briny pages. But Sharkey ac-
knowledges that his $4,000 was all
made within a roped space "a feet
! square, q remarkably small field of
money making for a man who has
sailed into almost every port of the
world. Besides his fortune in dollars,
the sailor has a proprietary interest
in California real estate. Since his re-
tirement from the main he has estab-
lished himself at Vallejo.
Scraps of experience from the life of
the man who will amuse an audience
tonight, show that he ran away from
home in Ireland when only years of
age. He shipped aboard a stout three
master for long run around the Cape
for Calcutta Glimpses of the strange
ways prevailing in Hindoostan sharp
ter the rowing Irish lad got back home.
He rested from the hard bouts that
make up a life on the forecastle and
then shipped on a merchantmen for
Sydney, Australia. Lured from his
berth by the tales of the gold fields and
the bush, he deserted and took up
blacksmithing. This innovation was
followed for time and then he
knocked about for two years, doing
10, Ilr1l,l A.- &c.
too slow, so Sharkey forsook the shore
for the water, which he has always
considered his natural element.
% &. 81
Varied luck came during the inter-
walls of seven years upon the water.
An one time a barkentine with which
he had shipped got out of her course
below the Horn and lay to for sound
ings at GA degrees south where the
bergs fioated so close that they scraped
the hull When sent aloft in the MORN
ings the foretop men had to break the
ice from the lookout, and it was While
engaged in this dangerous task that
Sharkey froze his fingers and toes. the
biting frost marks still appearing on
these members in white streaks of cal
louSed cuticle.
He was able seaman on a frigate
that piled in the Indian ocean, giving
passage to Mohammedans who were en-
route to Jedda, an island off the north
east coast of Africa, where in the in
terror are said to repOse the bones or
Mahomet. ne
OF this spot, Sailor Sharkey spins a
yarn and it runs smoothly on this line:
Some of the faithful hoard their earn
ings of years. mayhap a snug fortune,
of which a possible turbaned> legatee
has had avaricious dreams. IL
fanatic, an ascetic, the head of some
prosperous Moslem shop may assure
his soul happiness with the sacred ass
and the holy dog in one of the mystic
seven heavens, by emptyinSS the golden
sequins of a life's toll into the deep
gulf of Jedda, where. the Koran WINS
pers. the holy bones do rest until Al
labs day. These were the burning
ones transported by Sailor Sharkey
captain. No white man had ever set
foot on Jedda until Sharkey sprang
from the gunwale of a long boat to its
rocky shore. His shipmates were all
coffee-colored Malays, and the white
man was not at all comfortable until
he left the eerie island bound on
landward course.
Malta is memorable to Sharkey be-
cause of the curious devices carved
upon its rocks by the ancient Greeks
representations in art of unutterable
human things. He does not think
much of the modern Greek as a sailor
Further along Sharkey became re-
cruit to the American navy and was
detailed to the Pacific squadron and
attached to the flagship Philadelphia.
When the United States Vandalia and
a German man-o'-war were lost in
terrific hurricane that blew off the
coast of Hawaii, the Philadelphia had
hove-to near Honolulu. Sharkey saw
the wreck of those gallant craft and
the dead bodies of the seamen after
they were thrown up from Davy Jones
locker and became the drift of an in
coming tide. The sight of the bloated
corpses was something that even
turned his stony stomach, and that
part of his anatomy is not weak by
any means.
The allusion to wrecks recalled to
the sailor-pugilist's mind only one sim
liar instance within his personal ex-
perience That occurred on the coast
of Australia whGn he was a sea dog
on a merchantmen. 1t foundered on
the reefs jutting from Sydney Head.
Sharkey and his companions made
shore through the driving breakers.
If the chances of the prize-ring ever
fOrSake him. IL Is not even likely lHdl
the Jack Tar of the ring will ever go
back to his old love.
Il have fixed myself for comfort
now he said last night, and as he
made the remark there flashed in the
eye a diamond of ever so many karats,
a massive gold watch lay in broad
palm and an artfully carved gold
matchbox offered the starters for the
proffered cigar. Sharkey has sailed his
money owav and besides this evidence
of substantial worth, he possesses
trophies valued at great sums, among
them being a belt presented to him by
officers and men of the American navy,
appraised at $4,000.