DEATH ON WEDDING EVE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1251, 28 May 1914, Page 4

DEATH ON WEDDING EVE.

BRIDEGROOM KIDDS HIMSKDF. Deeming his prospective bride to be ‘'too good a fellow’’ to marry a man like himself, Harry Schultz, a clerk, shot himself through the breast at Do;s Angeles recently, an hour before he was to have wended xVliss Carrie Scuabbell, Schultz was found lying on the floor of his apartments by Miss Schabbell’s brother, who had gone in search of him, and was removed to a hospital, where he died next day. The first intimation that Miss Schabbell had that her fiance was in trouble reached her when a messenger boy delivered a note to her in which was enclosed the wedding ring he had purchased for use at the nuptials. Miss Schabbell, who was arrayed in her bridal finery, fainted in the arms of two of her maids of honour when she read the note, which announced the doom of her sweetheart and wrecked her happiness. “I am not fit to marry so noble a woman as yon,” wrote Schultz. ‘‘You are too good a fellow for a man like me, I haven’t the heait to marry you or face you, so I will take my life before you get this. Forgive me, aud speak my farewells to the friends I have disappointed by my act. 1 hope we may meet in the hereafter.” The friends of the contracting parties were awaiting the arrival of the bridegroom, and the clergyman who was to have performed the nuptials had just entered the house when Miss Sc.baiiiiell’s shrieks called attention to the note she had received. The bridesmaids ran to her as she swooned and idi to the floor. A physician was hastily summoned, and several men were sent, to Schultz s room to investigate the matter.

When the irieuds forced an entrance into his room, which he had locked. Schultz feebly protested against the intrusion, and asked to be let alone so that he might die in peace. When asked why he had shot himself, he replied ; “I’m not good enough to marry Carrie. She is 100 good toe me, and 1 realised that if I married her I would be committing a crime for which I never mmld atone. It was to spare her .'mitering and me remorse that I resolved to end my own life. I scut her the wedding ring and notitick her of my reason tor not appearing at her house to keep my engagement. Let me die in peace."

Schultz was removed to a hospital, but he relused to make any additional statement, although he was warned byv the surgeons that he was near death. Working on the theory that Schultz may have had some more potent reason lor slaying himself, the police ligidly investigated his history, but nothing to warrant a more urgent reason than eccentricity for his suicide could be discovered.