The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1904-11-02
DUEL IN GIRLS PRESENCE
Father, Lover and Two Brothers
Shot in Wild Fusilade.
Houston, Texa-, Aghast at Terrible Trnc
edy-Two Dead and Two nde
Insurance Man Also Shot Same Day.

Houston, Texas. All Houston was
aghast at the record of M Of the most
sanguinary days that has marked the
social annals of the town. Within q
few hours three tragedies were en-
acted, and three men prominent and
popular in the business and social cir-
Giles of the place are now dead. In one
family alone the father is dead and his
two sons seriously wounded, and the
father, with his dying words, charged
his sons with his death.
A girl, young and beautiful, was the
innocent cause of the fierce fight with
six-shooters in which Ernest Schilling
was killed and his sons Frederick and
Henry wounded. She was the dauSh-
ter of the house, and it was through Il
visit paid to her by Herman Gilman,
who had long been nj of her most de.
voted admirers, that the trouble began.
Gilman, too, is dead. shot through the
heart in the savage four-handed battle.
which was waged in the presence Of
the girl he had hoped to make his wife.
The two brothers of the girl are pris-
oners, and will have to answer. the
gravest charge the law knows.
Ernest Schilling was q wealthy real
estate dealer. and his house, of which
his daughter Beatrice was the mistress,
was one of the social centres Of the
town. Herman Gilman had long been
a sutton for her hand, and, though the
girl was inclined to favor him. his suit
was opposed bitterly by her two BROTH
ers. No reason for their hostility was
Known even to friends of the family,
and as the father thoroughly approved
of young Gilman, the speedy announce
ment of an engagement was looked
upon as a foregone conclusion.
Ottman called at the Schilling home
in the evening and was welcomed cor
daily by the father and daughter. He
stayed for nearly an hour and had
risen to take his leave when Fred and
Henry. Miss Schilling's brothers, ell
tered the room. 1t is said they took no
pains to make their ann toward
their sisters visitor anything less than
offensive, and in a few hot words he
voiced his resentment at their beha-
vior. One of them is said to have an
swered him with a flood of singing
abuse, and, maddened beyond endur-
ance at the thought of tolerating such
an insult in the presence Of the woman
he loved, young Gilman flashed q re-
volver from his pocket.
In an instant the two young Schill-
ings had followed his example and
three shots rang out like one. Exactly
what followed no n has yet been able
to tell. Each man emptied his revolv-
er, but after the first fusilade the room
was so filled with smoke that the fight
was waged almost in the dark, and 1t
was impossible to see who fired and
who fell. When every one of the
eighteen chambers was empty and the
smoke drifted away, Ottman lay dead
in the middle Of the room, his body rid
died with bullets. {.
Miss Schilling vas the only one who
escaped the bullets, and in an agony Of
grief and fear she bent over the wound
ed and the dead. Gilman, she soon
saw was past all help, and she turned
to her father. He died in q few min
utes. The two sons had been carried
to their rooms and were being treated
by a doctor when q policeman came
and placed them under arrest. They
were taken as prisoners to q hospital.
The other victim Of the murderous
epidemic that seized the town is
Charles w. Jones. one Of the leading
Insurance men in Texas. He was shot
dead on the threshold of his office by
Major H. n. Swain, a former army Off
Ger and son of the president Of the in
surance company of which Jones was
secretary. Business differences are
said to have been at the root OF the
ill-feeling which is known to have ex'
listed between the men.