The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1875-06-17
THE CAUSES OF SUICIDE.
Frightful InereRse-A summer Crime
The Popular MethOds-Ehe Question
of Responsibility.

| Large ClueS.' The principal HELD OF his
investigations was this city. lie tells us
that during a period of seven years the
crime of suicide has increased in this COM
munityf300 per centum. During the
three years ending in 1872, $50 persons
killed themselves. OF this number 275
were males and 81 females; III were mar
ried, lis were unmarried, and 43 were
widows and widOwers.
| More persons commit suicide during the
summer months than in cold weather. In
August, 1870, fifteen persons killed them
| selves, and in December of the same year
only seven; in-July, 1872, there were
| twenty cases, and in December of the
same year only four. Clerks commit sui
eide more frequently than persons follow
| ing other occupations. During the three
Years ending in 1872 ,thirty-four clerks kill
ed themselves and ten labOrers. Poisoning
/ is the most usual method 2l2 persons out
of nearly 600 took poison, the preference
| being for arsenic in the common form of
| Paris green. One hundred and forty
seven persons shot themselves, and 135
killed themselves by hanging. Two ex-
UraOrdinary methods are cited-one that
of a man who shot himself and then jump
ed from a window; the other that OF man
who threw himself in front of 4 moving
locomotive engine.
This method of suicide certainly has
been employed a number of times in other
places, and, it is our impression, more
than once in New York. Another method
often employed, not only in this country,
but throughout the world, is jumping
from building or some high place. DIR.
Hamilton cOnfesses that, under certain
circumstance. he himself has experienced
a morbid desire of this character" The
sensation he describes is very common,
although we do not recOllect to have heard
an instance in which the sensation was so
constant as in a case which he mentions,
where the person subject to its refused to
sleep in the third or fourth story of
house, for fear of jumping from the win
dOws.
The causes to this tendency to suicide
are various. DIR. Hamilton accounts for
the fact that poison is the favorite method
for committing suicide in this city by the
comparative ease with which poison can
be obtained. A person in Broadway, for
example, can step into drug store and
buy almost any kind OfpOisOn he asks for,
and take it before he could walk half the
distance either to the North River or the
East River. But whilst he was walking
that distance the impulse to sef-destruc-
ton might have passed away. There is no
doubt the sale of poisonous drugs ought
to be more strictly regulated than it is.
Poison, however, is simply the means to
an end, and were it distributed daily in
every household in assorted packages, il
would fail TO account for the number of
suicides, except as it afforded OppOrtuni-
ties for Self-murder. Suicide is really the
direct result of mental disease. So long
us the mind remains unaffected by sur
rounding circumstances, there is no dan
ger of suicide.
Even the impulse to throw oneself from
a tower or high building is purely mental.
| Nevertheless, the mental affection is usual
| ly due TO bodily condition. DIR. Hamilton
| speaks of Opium-eating, chlOrOfOrm-tak-
ing, whisky-drinking living in crowded
and unwhOlesOme tenement-hOuses, un-
successful OverwOrk, strikes, immortality
of all kinds, and consequent loss of self
respect, followed by despair, and, in short,
we may say every thing which makes life
seem not worth further effort. ''TO be
or not to be-" Hamlet said, = that is the
question:" and when, in asking the ques-
ton, the mind is conscious OF the futility
of longer existence, the answer is very
certain to be in favor of death.
For the conditions which produce such
Il SIdte vi llllllu SOClCiN Is partly ItSpOLSl-
BILE. An abandoned woman who COM
mits suicide ordinarily does so because,
havinga desire TO lead an honest life, she
is without hope of success. So she gives
up. The shop girl who finds herself a
mother before she is wife prefers death
to life because she imagines the dis
grace is indelible. The clerk who
had rather face death than his
employer finds reason for his
preference in the belief that there is no
adequate remedy for detected guilt. The
mechanic, forced into an absurd cOnspira-
cy against the order of society, first, under
the specious plea of selfinterest; and,
secondly, under the supposed necessity of
Loyalty adhering to his brother members
of the trades union to which he belongs,
seeks permanent rest from labor because
he is too cOwardly, first, to break away
from the arbitrary restraints which his
trade organization puts upon his work;
and, secondly, to look again upon the wan
faces of mis- wife and hungry children. In
behalf of society it is to be said that in
many classes of cases the individual is the
sole responsible cause for his own mis-
fortunes; on the other hand, in behalf of
the Individual it is to be said that society
makes no allowance for the ineXperience
and mistakes of youth. Society, in most
of its various relations to the individual,
reiterates the old decree: 1.-The soul that
sinneth, it shall die"
1t is almost idle, however, to attempt to
adjust the specific responsibility for the
causes of self-murder. The fact Is that
many of the causes are very remote and
obscure; so remote and obscure, perhaps,
as never to be susceptible of satisfactory
statement. All that science and benevo-
lence can do is to lab n to remove or weak
en- the conspicuous physical and moral
causes. DR.. Hamilton himself recognizes
the limits within which all preventive ef-
forts must be confined. "TO reduce the
statistics of suicide" he says, "wOuld re-
quire an attack upon our whole social sys-
tenn" 1t would require more than that;
it would require an amount of mental
training for the individual such as all the
schools and systems of philosophy and
self-discipline of the race have as yet been
unable to effect. The Christian religion,
in creating patience which serves in
stead of fortituGe in combating the ills OF
life, comes nearest in imparting that resO-
lutte and indOmitable cJurage TO the hui
man heart which is indispensable. But
the vitality of the courage thus produced
depends in part upon the vividness of the
belief that selfdestruction will Overwhelm
one in greater evils.
Within the limits mentioned above,
however, something may be done. We
can trace, for example, the special temG TIA
tions to suicide which, during the last few
years, have beset clerks and other persons
holding positions of financial trust TO an ir-
redeemable paper currency, to the insane
spirit of financial speculation thereby in
duced, and to the consequent unlimited
chances of gaining sudden wealth which
went to pieces in the great collapse of
credit asst year. So far as that class of
suicides is concerned, the restoration of
sound currency is necessary preventive
measure. The police power Of the State,
supplemented by parental authority, may
also be properly exercised TO the repres-
sion of all Immoral and entieing shows,
and in the extinction of flagrantly indecent
publications, such as are now illegal.
Better rooms for the poor, less whisky
drinking, individual benevolence, and all
the various influences which tend TO the
enlightenment of mankind will also tend
to reduce the number of suicides, by max
ing self-destruction seem TO be the cow
ar,lly act il is. But after all is said and
\ - Ill -4;lI ro,,o in nnf0npbad that