The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1876-10-14
Strange and Striking Suicides.

secutors, is the first self-murderer of
Holy Writ. Saul fell upon his sword
in his last and lost battle. and the hor-
rid details of Razis' suicide lives with
every reader of the Scriptures. Among
the Greeks suicide was common, though
usually resorted to for worthier pur-
poses than lead to it to- day. Lycurgus.
the Trainer Of the famous Spartan laws,
in order to secure their observance.
made his people promise to keep them
inviolate "till his return" and then
withdrew to Delphi, where after con-
sultation with the oracle he starved him
self to death, thus enforcing the per-
petual observance of the national prom
Use.
Suicide was so common III ancient
Rome as to be called 1.-The Roman
Death" Pliny and Cicero were advo-
Gates of self-murder. Brutus. after the
battle of Philippi, called on his favor
tie slave to kill him, and the faithful
servitor. to avoid the act, slew himself,
leaving his master to plunge his own
sword into his vitals. Cassius was be-
headed at his own desire by his special
freedman. and Lucan, whose poetry
lives to-day, opened the veins in his
arms and bled to death.
But by far the most famous suicides
of ancient times were those of Antony
and Cleopatra. After his fatal conflicts
with Caesar, the unfortunate lover of
the Egyptian Queen, called on his at
tendant, Eros, to dispatch him. The
loving slave refused, and at last, unable
to withstand the entreaties of his mas
ter, stabbed himself. The despairing
Roman, thus left to himself, seized the
blade, still reeking with his servants
life. and plunged it in his own bowels.
He was found in this condition by Do
modes, the chief eunuch of the Queen,
and conveyed to her presence, where he
died, with his pallid face pillowed on
her dusky bosom, and his ebbing life
defiling her purple robe: A few days
later, and when her application to Ce-
sar had proved unavailing, Cleopatra
sat down to what was to be the last OF
her many royal feasts. The table was
still aglow with the regal banquet, when
the Queen lay stiff and dead. with the
fatal serpent still coiled upon her cold
breast. A fit companion-picture to this
royal felo do Sc, is that Of Sardanapalus,
roasting amid his imperial jewels and
among his concubines on o funeral pyre
of sandal. wood and precious gums.
In spite of the prevalence of suicides
among the ancients, the laws against
them were stringent, and the practice
of self-destructiOn was considered q
heinous crime.
It has been reserved for the more
modern times, however, to afford the
historian of self-murder real subject for
his pen, and the number on the list OF
suicides has been steadily on the in
crease since the beginning of the Chris
tian era.
It is a noteworthy fact that the pro-
portion of male to female suicides has
been, and is, about three to one, and
that while among the females, married
women and widows seek the last resort
more frequently than single ones, the
score of unmarried male suicides pre-
dominates. Drowning is the method
most resorted to in modern times. Fire
arms are next in favor, and poison falls
last. The latter two are the most COM
mon among women. But, most singu-
lar of all, is the fact that by accurately
compiled statistics, more cases of fel0
ito Sc occur in the month of April than
any other season.
But, besides the vulgar means, there
is no lack of recorded original methods
of taking ones life. Pietro Peratti. the
Neapolitan author, who threw himself,
in imitation of the Sicilian poet, into
the crater of Vesuvius, and the Aus
trian captain, who fastened himself to 1.
signal rocket, offer, perhaps, the most
inventive species of deadly novelty;
but what can one say of Pierre Dumar-
tin, who threw himself among the bears
in the bear pit Of the Jardin des Plantes,
or of the Greenwich pensioner, Peter
Deems, who, because his grog had
been stopped for some trifling INSIDE
meanor, sharpened his spectacle legs to
point, and stabbed himself with them.
A woman in the service of the late
Lord Stanley, broke hole in the ice Of
the fish. pond of her masters garden,
and thrust her head into the water, so
that when found, stone dead, her body
was quite dry; and woman, whose
husband was an apothecary. applied
more than hundred leeches to her
person to drain her blood.
John Powers, an employee at the
Tredegar Iron Works, in Richmond,
before the war, sprang into the furnace
he was accustomed to feed. and week
later another man in the same works,
threw himself, face down, into a chan
mel Of molten iron in which II gun was
being run.
A free negro, employed at Little