ROMANCE CAUSES FATAL DUEL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 85, 30 May 1911, Page 5

ROMANCE CAUSES FATAL DUEL.

Because the young man was only a workman the lady's father frowned upon hi« love-making, and the s' vynieh might have ended amidst the ringing of wedding hells has closed with a double tragedy, the lover and his sweetheart’s brother having kjlled each other in a desperate duel. The combatants were Mr Kidwell McSweon, a well-known Tennesso lawyer, and Mr John Prichett, a young engine driver of whom the oigliteen-ycar-old sister of Mr McSween had, it is said, become enamoured. The contest recalls the early days of railway history in the States, when, in response to the demands of the country aristocracy, the Legislature of South Carolina passed a law making it a penal offence for any railway employee to flirt with or wave his handkerchief to girls who watched the passirig trains. Mr Prichett made the acquaintance of Miss Emma McSween in a station yard, and used to send signals to her window from the cab of his engine. The romance flourished until six weeks ago the colonel sent his daughter to a convent. She escaped, and in response to her telegraphic request Mr Pritchett met. her at Knoxville. Young Mr McSween sot out in a furious chase of the couple, and followed them to Hot Springs in North Carolina, and thence back to Newport, Tennesso, the home of the girls’ parents. While a relative drove away with Miss McSween, her brother caught Mr Prichett on the station stops and opened fire on him with an automatic pistol. Mr Prichett, who had been warned, had a revolver in each hand. Both men fired as fast as possible until Mr McSween sank dead with five shots in his body and a sixth in his heart. Officials hurried up and found Mr Prichett dying beside the body of his opponent. Ho had received three bullets, one close to the heart and one in the thigh, while the third' had passed through his hand.