The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1864-09-27
1niMa Telearaph



almost certain, that for some years to come the
ohenso Of suicide will increase in Great Britain.
The mania for killing oneself remarked during
the past month, which has attracted the atton-
bon of the police, and induced magistrates to
ptultiiy themselves by threatening imprisonment
70 women who have already faced death, has not
much bearing upon the general question. Moral
epidemios of that kind spread as rapidly and
uRaccouptably diseases, and are just as little
anena0le 10 human control. Suicide sometimes
breaks out in a community like scarlet fever, and
though society by careful precaution may pro
vent It's recurrence, that particular outbursr can
neV,r be arrested or cured It must lust run a.,
course and die away by degrees. But there are
general tendencies az work which threaten to
make suicide for the future much more frequent,
ana which may deserve 20 be closely watched By
the light OF the returns Of morality.
In the first place the old deterreuts to the
onense are either falling into disuse or rapidly
passing away. Jures have become not only un-
favorable but hostile TO the verdi rs of fcl0 ds se
arc the ancient fear of the suic de, the something
nnhaliOwed 10 happen 70 his body after DEATH
mas disappeared from society. We suspect IL
had good deal of influence, that the burial by
torchlight, and the stake and all the rest OF the
ecclesiAstical penalties, cruel and silly as they
were, had great weight with the despOnding class
which rids itself OF life. The uneducated really
feared them, as they fear TO this day the notion
OF being "Duried IN a ditch like dog and the
educated, though aware that the BODY becomes
manure and passes into the trees and the grass
and the flowers, whether in cOnscUratCd ground
or at four crossroads, still disked the disgrace
such burial reflected on their relatives. People
care about their own corpses, II not from reason
then from instinct
Sir Charles Napier, who, like most men of
genius, bad way of entering into the thoughts
of people below himself, once attacked mania
for suicide after a fashion very different from Mr.
Cookies. The better class women of Scinde we're
killing themselves at an astounding rate-21O
died in very few weeks, and he had an objec-
tion - their doing that or anything else without
his preYiVus permission. Accordingly he resolved
to put stop 70 the practice; but, being u man of
genius, instead OF a member of Parliament, he
did not order every woman who failed in tue first
attempt To make a second, under penalty of
imprisonment and heaTtess Investigate IN, bat
proclaimed thar The body of the next woman who
died should be hung up by one leg naked in the
maIket-place. Suicide ended. The women could
face deaih, but they wanted, dead or alive, TO
look decent, and that being impossible when dead,
preferred to keep alive The old yerdicts mad
much the effect Of that order, very unreasonably,
perhaps, but then the human race is not as a rule
quit ed by pure reason.
Then, strange as il seems the more genial and
truthful views of God and death and the future
which are striking so deep into society though
they repress crime, which always grows fierce
with the ferocity of the REFRESHING creed, also
tend, especially among rough natures TO dimin-
ish The fear of DEATH People begin TO perceive
more cl, arly that God is loving and with the
=,
wildeTs theolOgidns, they fancy they will be more
directly under His care in the uexl life than they
are already in this. Like the man who declared
the Book OF Job false because 1t makes Satan
talk with God, they fancy II possible to be out of
the presence of the OmniprCseut, to be- as il
khWere forgotten OfheaveA.
That 10 the internal feeling which produces the
Ptherwise ineXpcab.c crime, the slaughter of
children by loving parents Just as they are about
70 shit oil their own responsibility. Mrs Logge,
at Reading, last week, could not bear TO leave
IaH Oh a l.. VI,s
them to demand His care in the next, and then
jumped into the river herself. As the horror OF
death diminishes, the instructive horror Of sui
eide as an incident in ones career, must of ne
cessity diminish also. The horror of IL as a sin
ougnt 10 increase, but the sin is precisely the fea.
ture OF the act the miserable do not see.
The g oss deterrent, the fear of death, and the
superstitious deterrent, the fear of consequences
TO the corpse, are both passing away, while the
provocatiyes are becoming daily stronger. Three
distinct temptations to suicide are increasing
with every movement of the age, the peace OF
life, the dread OF opinion, and the unprecedented
development of foresight among those hitherto
uneducaIed. We do not attribute TO the first
cause the positive Influence the Times ls
inclined 10 assign TO it, buJ it operates in a
negative way very strongly. Those who really
live the pace Of the day do not commit suicide
their interests are too various, their thoughts too
little inToyerted but the rapidity of the move
ment around them weakens the resisting power
of those who do commit it, the brooding and the
melancholy diminishes their GOnceit in them
selVes-conceited people don't hang Themselves
lessons their power to bear up against the rushing
tide of events
The increased power of fopinion is a much more
immediate cause of selt-destrucJion. A very
large proportion of suicides are caused by fear
OF that power which is wholly new in degcce
though not in kind. II was always a terrible
thing 20 lose character but still the loss was
remediable-the victim could remove to another
place where he or she was as unknown as il
dropped from the clouds, and begin life atresh
without the
all over now, the press and the railway have
brought light into the dark places, and
the most secluded village in Britain is
now as public as Holborn or Cheap side.
Convicts complain every daY in the Police
Court that their sentence follows them every
where, and ii is true that TO the respectlble-i.e
70 those who feel social stigmas-the world, when
their characters are once tainted, is becoming one
vast prison. house. AS the sense OF honor de-
yelops among the multitndes, and that it is
developing fast all familiar with tue poor well
know this will be perhaps the strongest of all the
temptations TO suicide. It Is already the most
apparent; al least one-half of tue cases which
reach the police courts being suicides committed
by girls whose lovers have betrayed and deserted
them.
The largest cause of all, however, we believe, is
the increase of foresight, the development OF
imagination among the millions. AS they rise
and they rise fast, how fast will not be perceived
till the men of fifty die of-to the feelings OF the
educated, they come also within the circle OF
their temptations, and one of those temptations
.dwells around the broad base of the social pyra-
mid had thirty years ago no foresight, lived on
from day TO day, never thought of the MORO ~
could not in millions CT instances understand tue
value OF the dread of anything not close at hand,
OF pension for instance, or thirty years of ian
pTisoumcnt instead Of twenty. They have been
carefully taught 10 understand 70 provide for
old age, 10 study the future, 10 realize thut life
and H. cares do no; end with the week just pass
ing away. Consequently they perceive rs they
never perceived before, the consequences Of their
acts, the Tesnlts which will come but have not
come from their misiOrtunes.
A great employ or OF labor told MS recently that
the greatest change which in thirty years he b al
noticed In the men'Gl condition of his people wa
in this respect, that dread such az the educated
poor constantly feel had settled In his villages
ana lad, as he thought, taken much of happiness
cut OF life. Millions are rising to the rtuS OF
educsted poor, learning 20 worry about possible
stOppages of wages, about savings, about their
children's education and prospects, about their
own chance OF escaping the W1rlh0use in old
age. Poverty is a very close ncghbOr 10 these
people, and they fear IL with fear which stran-
giles cbeerfuness in It's birth. For one result they
accept the principle of insurance by hundreds Of
thousands, but for another they will feel the
temptations 10 suicide as their social superiOrs
feel them, and yet more keenly than they for
these know by experience what the others only
dread.
Everywhere We hear among the masses Of plans
vCb I'd the futura-Df sOciptipe which rive