Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1875-12-16
Suicides.

The TRUE THEORf-H HEN AHkt w
CUR AND WHY-WHo TAKE THEIR
OwN LIVES.
From the Newark Adyertiser.l
Suicides are increasingly frequent,
and the phenomena which precede
and attend them are strange and con-
Trajectory. What may be called
business suicides, those which are
impelled by chagrin and despair ~
the sudden loss of all the worh ol
a life time in accommodating wealth. OF
competence, happen unliorInly
men of personal honor VINO Ia. nav tha;r
wisely and illegally come 70 yes. 'neG d
own character, their self,respec. anu
their right to place and dignity IN
The community, upon the irrefraga-
I;,;.~ E IF their commercial signature,
and The longer such a man has lived
IN such mistaken credit the more
cautiously he has avoided reckless
;nyestment or hazardous specula-
tion. the deeper will be his disap-
pointment when by the act of others
or error of his own the ambition OF a
life is broken. And our impression is
derived from the too numerous cases
of this class of suicide which crowd
upon our memory, that they are COM
mitted usually in the early morning
hours, rarely in the day time, and
almost never in the evening or on re-
tiring to bed at night.
Let any man-and who has not SO
suffered-recall his own experience
when harrassed with care. He goes
home at evening, rests, reads, talks
and occupies his mind, his chief de-
sire being the forgetfulness of sleep.
But early in the morning watch he
awakes, his nervous energies at the
lowest ebb, his evils all magnified In
the silence and darkness, the difficult
ties of the coming day seeming be.
yond the power of man to meet, and
he does not know, perhaps, that it is
a physiological fact that at no hour
of the day is the human mind SO un-
fit to plan, so untrustworthy, so prone
to despair, as it is after sleep and in
the hours between 2 in the morning
and daylight. This is not disease
it is physiological, normal depres-
sion of the system, which sunlight
and a dash of cold water over the
head and face will certainly cure.
And the calmer and more self-assur-
ed the previous life has been, the pro-
founder is the gloom of the morning
watch when trouble comes. His
cares are cumulative. The whole
days trials seem ore single task, all
rushing upon him in grievous bulk,
and not as what they really are, sepa-
rate transactions, to be taken up and
disposed of one by one. The ankle
ty rises to passion, passion to sur
render of all self-control and suicide
ushers in the day.
Possibly if this fact in physiology
were better known, if man, in what
ever stress of sorrow, were well-in-
formed that the early morning hours
are those in which his judgment is
really nothing better than remorse,
and that his imagination is the mas
ter of his mind, there would be fewer
of this class of suicides. That it is a
fact, let the universal experience of
night-travel answer, when as the
night wanes and the chill of morning
draws along there will not be found
in whole train load of passengers
one cheerful face or contented voice.
Allare alike miserable and all regain
their smiles as day comes fairly on.
For such suicides there can be
only feeling of profound pity and
sympathy. They do not occur to
men of mean minds. A failure in
business which must involve wide
spread disaster to helpless and inno-
cent persons, is to some men a mere
unlucky incident, to be closed ont by
some arrangement with the creditors,
and then life will begin anew. Such
is the history of most speculative fail
ures. In cases where crime is added
to reckless business management
and robbery of trusts, the party fail
ing is not especially in trouble. Like
the Tweed gang in New York, he
lays his hands upon what he can
get, and resorts to that modified
form of suicide whicn men call exile.
In the long run it is a bad suicide,
in the separation it effects from all
the associations of home, honor and
native land, and in the brutaliz ing
effect exile, under such circum-
stances, produces upen the mind and
morals.
Probably no class of men commit
suicide from such trivial causes or
with so little of genuine mental dis
turbance as those who have reasoned
themselves into the belief of moth
ingless hereafter, and some races of
men are peculiar in that respect.
They do not ask God to be their
judge for they assume that even if
there be any hereafter, it will be only
in return of their elements, mental
and corporeal, to the source from
whence they came, a re-blending of
them with the ether of creation, in
which all individuality is lost. This
is the faith or the no faith-of
many thousands among US. They
look upon suicide as an effectual re-
source from trouble whenever they
= are tired of life, and they tire very
easily at times. A disappointment
in love, quarrel with friend, an in
suit received or the annoyance of
pain or disease, are excuse enough
for putting stop to all future fret
and worry, and the act of suicide is
surrounded with all the evidences of
nationality. There is no sort of plea
of insanity.
The old English law made .felo de
Sc felony, as the word .felo implies,
its derivation being from the dog
Latin of the law, invented by Eng
lish jurists. 1t means O felony
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