Union and American. [volume] (Greeneville, Tenn.) 1875-1877, 1875-12-16
SUICIDES,


own ksATG8s
- From the Newark AdTertiser.1
Suicides are increasingly frequent
md the phenomena which precede
: md attend them are strange and
q contradictory. What may be call
ID business suicides, those which
are airnpelled by chsgrin and de
spair at the sudden loss of ali the
work of lifetime in accumulating
wealth or competence, happen uni
formly to men of personal honor
who have unwisely and illogicaliy
con to test their own character,
their self respect and their right to
place and dignity in the communi-
ty, upon the irrefragabiiity of their
commercial signature, and the long
er such a man has lived in such un-
shaken credit, the more cautiously
be has avoided reckless investment
or hazardous speculation, the deep
er viii be his disappointment when
4 by the act of others or error of his
own the ambition of life is broken.
And our impression is, derived from
the too numerous cases of this class
of suicides which crowd upon our
memory. that they are committed
usually in the early morning hours,
rarely in the day time, and almost
never in the evening or on retiring
to bed at night.
Let any man-and who has not
suffered-recall his own experience
when harassed 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 ali magni-
fed in the silence and darkness, the
difficulties of the coming day seem
ing beyond the power of man to
meet, and he does not know, per.
haps, that it is physiological fact
that at no honr of the day is the
human mind SO unfit to plan, so
Enthusiastically, so prone to despair,
as it is after sleep and in the hours
between in the morning and day
light. This is not disease-it is
physiological, a normal depression
of the system, which sunlight and
dash of cold water over the heud
and face will certainly cure. And
the caimer and the more self,assur-
ed the previous life has been, the
profoLn nder is the gloom of The
morning watch when trouble comes.
His cares are cumulative. The
yzhole days trials seem one single
task, all rushing upon him in a
grievous bulk, and not as what they
really are, separate transactions, to
be taken mp and disposed of enc
by one. The anxiety rises to pass
ion, passion TO q surrender of all
self control and suicide ushers in
the day.
Possibly if this fnct in physiology
were better known, if man, in
whatever stress of sorrow, were
wsllinfgansd that the early morn
ing hours are those in which his
Judgment is really nothing better
than remorse, and that his imagi-
nation is the master of h,s mind,
there would be fewer of this class
of suicides. That it is O fact, let
the universal experience of night
travel answer, when as the night
wanes and the child of the morning
draws along there will not be found
in a whole train load of passengers
one cheerful face or eontented voice
All are alike miserable and all re-
gain their smiles as Cay comes fair
ly on. ,i 2"
For such suicides there can be
only feeling of profound pity and
sympathy. They do not occur 10
men of mean minds. A failure in
business which nttst involve wide
spread disaster to helpless and in
nocent persons, is to some men a
mere unlucky incident, to be closed
out by some arrangement with the
creditors, and then life viii begin
| anew. Such is the history of most
speculative failures. In cases where
crime isadded to reckless business
management and robbery of trusts,
the party failing 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 which men
call exile. In the long run, it is a
bad suicide, in the separation il
i'effects from all the associations OF
fhome, honor and native land, and
IL the orutalizing effect exile, under
such circumstances produces upon
the mind and morals. 1l 5-a..
/ Probably no class of men commit
suicide from such trivial causes on
with SO little of genuine mental dis
turbance as those who have reason
ed themselves into the belief of q
nothingless hereafter, and some
races of men are peculiar in that
respect. They do not ask God to
be their judge, for they assume thai
even if there be any hereafter, il
will be only in a return of their ele-
ments, mental AMI corporeal, to the
source from whence they came, O
re blending of them with tie ether
of creation, in which all individual
ity is lost. This is the faith--or
the no faith-of many thousands
among us. They look upon suicide
as an effsctual resource from trouble
whenever they are tired of life, and
they tire very easily at times. A
disappointment in love, a quarrel
with a friend, an insult received OF
the annoyance of pain or disease,
are excuses enough for putting a
stop to all future fret and worry
and the act of suicide is surround
ed with all the evidences of rational
itv. There is no sort of plea OF
| insanity. t-z asEca -
I The old English law made Jedo
de Sc felony as the word fedO i'm
plies, it's derivation being from the
dog Latin of the law, invented by
English jnrists.a It means n felony
against ones self, and was punished
1 ~ Enr,lond Mt y,0lv itra ofha, fol