“I have discussed fully, in plain language, the numerous false
    devices resorted to by the plaintiff for the purpose of
    strengthening her case.”

Miss Sarah and her attorneys had now come in sight of the promised land of Sharon’s ample estate.  Regular proceedings, however, under the law, seemed to them too slow; and besides there was the peril of an adverse decision of the Supreme Court on appeal.  They then decided upon a novel course.  Section 137 of the Civil Code of California provides that while an action for divorce is pending, the court may, in its discretion, require the husband to pay as alimony any money necessary to enable the wife to support herself and to prosecute or defeat the action.  The enterprising attorneys, sharing the bold spirit of their client, and presuming upon the compliance of a judge who had already done so well by them, went into the court, on the 8th of January, 1885, and modestly demanded for Sarah Althea, upon the sole authority of the provision of law above quoted, $10,000 per month, as the money necessary to enable her to support herself, and $150,000 for attorneys’ fees to prosecute the action.  This was to include back pay for thirty-eight months, making a sum of $380,000, which added to the $150,000, attorneys’ fees, would have made a grand total of $530,000.  This was an attempt, under the color of a beneficent law, applicable only to actions for divorce, in which the marriage was not denied, to extort from a man more than one-half million dollars, for the benefit of a woman, seeking first to establish a marriage, and then to secure a divorce, in a case in which no decree had as yet been entered, declaring her to be a wife.  It was not merely seeking the money necessary to support the plaintiff and prosecute the case; it was a request that the inferior court should confiscate more than half a million dollars, in anticipation of a decision of the Supreme Court on appeal.  It was as bold an attempt at spoliation as the commencement of the suit itself.  The Supreme Court of the State had decided that the order of a Superior Court allowing alimony during the pendency of any action for divorce is not appealable, but it had not decided that, under the pretence of granting alimony, an inferior judge could apportion a rich man’s estate among champerty lawyers, and their adventurous client, by an order from which there could be no appeal, made prior to any decree that there had ever been a marriage between the parties, when the fact of the marriage was the main issue in the case.  The counsel for Sharon insisted upon his right to have a decree entered from which he could appeal, before being thus made to stand and deliver, and the court entertained the motion.

Upon this motion, among other affidavits read in opposition, was one by Mr. Sharon himself, in which he recited the agreement between Miss Hill and her principal attorney, George W. Tyler, in which she was to pay him for his services, one-half of all she might receive in any judgment obtained against Sharon, he, Tyler, advancing all the costs of the litigation.  The original of this agreement had been filed by Tyler with the county clerk immediately after the announcement of the opinion in the case as an evidence of his right to half of the proceeds of the judgment.  It was conclusive evidence that Sarah Althea required no money for the payment of counsel fees.