American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-06-14
CuriOsitieS of Suicide.

CuriOsities of Suicide.
IN regard to suicide, not n few superb
cial observers, and especially those prone
to theOriZe about the growth of society in
depravity, have lately been inclined to
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 the
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 100000 persons
was only 3.5 in 1870 against SO in 1860
and 81 in 1850. This shows very favora-
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 a staple of interest in the fortunes of
all the rest Another common opinion
which we believe the statisticians them
selves first set aeog, is measurably explod-
| ed by these census tables. This is that
| the farmer class is most given to suicide,
as to insanity. The fables we have com
| piled show pretty colclusivcly that sui
cides, like the other most destructive dis
cases. tend to intensity themselves in and
around the great cities, and especially the
centres of speculation. 1t is not rust but
wear and tear which produces the sort of
madness which hurries Il 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 conclusively
prove this.
The tables of monthly rates completely
dispose of the old notion lat the depress-
ing effects of the weather tend to develop
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 share love has in
producing those forms of melancholy
which predispose to selfdestruction. In
the spring the fapcies of both young men
and young women lightly turn to thoughts
Of love, and if disappointment comes, as
lgQliN SlIuc vi W VI lllc
bare bodkin, the lascivious twinings of
the gentle rope, the cool depths of the
duelk-pond, or the remedial virtues of the
poisoned bowl. Yet gentle woman, with
all her facility in loving and her prone
ness ~ let the canker of disappointment
prey upon her damask cheek, is remarka-
bly, tenacious of life. Care hurts but does
not kin her. Men die of love, of business,
of tedim ritz, just as they die of small
huty live Sp1i1
ing at grief, perhaps because they are bet
ter acquainted with it and have greater |
patience Be this it may, certain it is |
that for $50 men suicides there are only |
2S5 women to wander with them in trans
Stygian soliMdes
The ages Ct suicides is most interest |
ing study. Ssange as it may seem, in |
1870 there wer two boys committed sui |
eide who We're slder ten years old, and |
nine boys and thee girls who were under |
fifteen. Emphalleilly these were not lives |
-" It's but pieo of childhood thrown |
away" Between he ages of fifteen and |
twenty 81 boys and 30 girls committed |
suicide. This is tn. only age at which |
the females approach the males in their |
amount of folly, AM it is probable that |
immature love, whicAis as indigestibe as
green apples, was athe bottom of it. AT |
any rate, soon as tin wears of discretion |
are reached the girls abandon all attempt |
to rival the boys in sGcidal mania. Be |
tween twenty-five and thirty there were 1O2 |
men suicides to 81 wohen. From forty |
to fifty, when women aregenerally settled |
in life, while the craze ofbusiness is at its |
height with men, the women suicides are |
only 43 while the men Suhi rise to 239 |
As they grow older, woma, 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 100000 male sur
vivors and 100000 &males; the |
men make way with themselves nearly |
at the rate of 25 in 100000, Or eight times
the average of all ages, while the women
only take their lives at the nte of 3 in
100000 At ninety, when there are only |
66 poor veterans lett of 10000. 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 |
druS-stores infrequent, pistol or rifle
both men and women in settling up their
temporal concerns. In the agricultural
districts the rope is the favorte; in cities
poison, the rope, the razor, and the tide
ENJOY divided suffrages. Altogether hang
ing Is the tavorite method of feto de Sc
This is on account of its favoring privacy,
nolselessness, and not making dirt. Be
sides, when IA 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 lie
minded to do SO. The majority OF women
take poison, while only a very small pro
portion of them-3S in 2S5-shoot them
selves or cut their Threats. They are
afraid of blood, and besides there Is an
uncomelincss about distiguring wounds
and an essential dirtiness and coarscncsS
in blood at which they insiinctIycly re-
volt 1t was "a subtle remark of hawthorne
that had Zenobia, in "Blithedale," guessed