Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1873-06-19
CuriOsities of Suicide.

comment upon the increasing frequency
| of selfmurder, and to ascribe it to the
| recklessness of life engendered by the late
war But the fact is, as is shown by tbe
statistics referred to above for the census
year 1870, that suicide has not increased
in frequency during the past decade. The
total number of suicides in 5000 persons
was only So in 1870, against 80 in 1860
and 81 in 1850 This shows very fayora-
bly,, and proves that while the absolute
number is slightly greater the ratio of in
crease is 80 per cent less than it was in
the previous decade The apparent fact
of a large increase in the number of sui-
cides is probably due to the wider public
ity such acts have gained, in common
with all other news, through the increase
OF the press in enterprise and the growth
OF the people in cosmopolitan sympathies.
The telegraph and the daily papers have
made US all neighbors and given each one
! OF us staple of interest in the fortunes of
all the rest. Another common opinion
which we believe the statisticians them.
selves first set agog, is measurably explod
ed by these census tables. This is that
the farmer class is most given to suicide
as to insanity. The tables we have com,
piled show pretty conclusively that sui-
cides, like the other most destructive dis
eases, tend to intensity themselves in and
around the great cities, and especially the
centres of speculation. 1t is not rust Int
wear and tear which produces the sort of
madness which hurries a man forward to
that bourne whence no traveller returns
The suicide rates of New York, Illinois
California, Massachusetts and Missouri
compared with those of Alabama, Georgia
Indiana, Kentucky and the Carolinas, and
taken in connection with the respective
populations of these States, conclusiyelv
prove this.
The tables OF monthly rates completely
dispose of the old notion that the depress-
ing effects Of the weather tend to deyelon
the suicidal mania. 1t is shown that the
months of April and May are largely
ahead OF the other seasons in suicides, and
that May especially has more than fifty in
excess OF any other month. This circum-
stance, in connection with the facts de-
veloped in the tables of sex and age. goes
to show how large a share love has in
producing those forms of melancholy
which predispose to selfdestruction. In
the spring the fancies of both Young men
and young women lightly turn to thoughts
OF love, and ii disappointment comes, as
lightly glide OFT to CONCENTRATIONS of the
bare bodkln, the lascivious twinings of
the gentle rope, the cool depths Of the
duck-pond, or the remedial virtues of the
poisoned bowl. Yet gentle woman, with
all her facility in loving and her prone
ness to let the canker of disappointment
prey upon her damask cheek, is remarka-
bly, tenacious of life. Care hurts but does
not kill her Men die OF love, of business,
of tedaum cit9, just as they die of small,
poX or measles; but women live on, smil-
ing at grief, perhaps because they are bet
ter acquainted with it and have greater
patience. BE this as it may, certain it is
that Tor 900 men suicides there are goly
$50 women to wander with them in trans
Stygian solitudes.
The ages of suicides is most interest
ing study. Strange as it may seem, in
1870 there were two boys committed sui
eide who were under ten years old. and
nine boys and three girls who were under
fifteen. Emphatically these were not lives
-" tbs but piece of childhood thrown
away" Between the ages of fifteen and
twenty "a boys and 80 girls committed
suicide. This is the only age at which
the females approach the males in their
amount Of folly, and it is probable that
immature love, which is as indigestible as
green apples, was at the bottom of it. At
any rate, as soon as the years of discretion
are reached the girls abandon all attempt
to rival the boys in suicidal mania. Be
tween twenty-five and thirty there were 1Oa
men suicides to 33 women. From forty
to nifty, when women are generally settled
IN life, while the craze of business is at its
height with men, the women suicides are
only AZ while the men suicides rise to 239.
AS they grow older, women, who naturally
tend to survive men, continually increase
in tenacity Of life, while the relative num-
Der OF male suicides regularly increases,
until approaching seventy, when
there are only $4,000 male sur
vivors and 100000 females; the
men make way with themselves nearly
at the rate of % in 100000, or eight times
the average of all ages, while the women
only take their lives at the rate of 3 in
10000 AT ninety, when there are only
66 poor veterans left of 100000, five men
suicides can still be found, but not one
woman, though at that age the female sex
is in the majority.
The sex OF the suicides and the season
OF the year IN which the deed is commit
ted have great deal to do with the lethal
means to which the suicide resorts in
order to shuttle off the mortal coil with
happy despatch The section of the cOun-
try has also something to do with the
choice OF weapons. In the wilder regions
OF the West where firearms are plenty and
drug-stores infrequent, pistol or rife
shot is the usual means employed by
both men and women in settling up their
temporal concerns. In the agricultural
districts the rope is the favorite; in cities
poison, the rope, the razor, and the tide
enjoy divided suffrages Altogether hang
ing is the favorite method of felo de Sc
This is on account of its favoring privacy,
noiselessness, and not making dirt. Be
sides, when rope is holding one up by
the neck with his toes out Of reach of the
ground he cannot usually reconsider his
action, no matter how much he may be
minded to do so. The majority of women
take poison, while only very small pro-
portion of them-3S in 265-shoot them
selves or cut their throats They are
afraid of blood, and besides there is an
uncomeliness about disfguring wounds
and an essential dirtiness and coarseness
in blood at which they instinctively re-
volt 1t was subtle remark of Hawthorne
that had Zenobia, in "Blithedale," guessed
how ugly she looked as a corpse she
would never have drowned herself. 1t is
the nature Of a woman to shrink from the
unseemly, and when she cuts her throat
she invariably does so over basin, to
keep from spelling the carpets and dab
bling her clothes
1t might be taken for a satire upon the
supert1uous humaneness of our laws that,
while only 81 persons were strangled in
y O %