TERRIBLE DUEL IN LOUISIANA

Taranaki Daily News, 17 January 1910, Page 3

TERRIBLE DUEL IN LOUISIANA

THREE PERSONS KILLED,

flie Now York eorrespondents of the London Daily Mail saye.-—A duel which developed into a terrible tragedy involv ing the death of three person* tooik place on lu'tn Norember g| Pioneer, Louisiana. The combatant* w«?« two .brother*;— Sylvester and Albert Owen, the son's of a Methodist preacher. Standing fire feet apart, they foaght a three-'cornered duel with Clarence Compton, a wealthy planter. Unlike the duel in which Uids'hipman Easy figured, fi*ur pistols Wire «*ed. Oompton, whom the. -'brothers accused of slightrng""' words to tueir Bister, held ttffautomatic revolver in each hand, and faeed his two opponents at a distance of twenty feet. After the first exchange of shots Sy)Te6ter ten, slightly wounded. Compton then emptied his second revolycr in the air, exclaiming: "Haven't you children had enough? I could as easily hare killed Sylvester as wounded him." The brothers angrily demanded thai the fight should continue. "Then 111 shoot to kill," shouted Compton. Sylvester bound up his arm, and the strange combat proceeded. The two boys were firing as rapidly as possible at the elder man, when Mrs. Conipton and her little daughter, alarmed at, the shots?, rushed to the scene. They Hung themselves on Compton's neck, imploring him to stop. The next moment she and her daughter fell dead, and Compton, with his chest riddled with three bullets, sank on tln-ir bodies. The Owen brothers surrendered to the sheriff, explaining that Mrs. and Miss Compton threw themselves' so suddenly into the conflict that they had no time to stop firing:.