Smyrna times., 1877-06-27
Suicides in June.

announced lately by somebody with turn
of mind both ghoul-like and scientific, that
the. present month is the one when the
propensity to suicide is always most preva-
lent. They are full of accounts of misera-
BILE people weary of breath, who have taken
up pistol or Paris green against their sea
of troubles, and so ended them. Men tired
of scolding wives, women jealous of their
husbands, a young girl who could not
"pass" in algebra, young man who lost a
trinket, are among these extraordinarily
unheroic people. The superintendents of
insane asylums, who ought to know some
thing about the matter, announced their
opinion recently that suicides were not
necessarily insane, while by an odd coinci-
dence, on the same day the Supreme Court
of Pennsylvania declared that they were.
We are not all sure that it is wise to
hold any more pour parlerS over these
wretched people. Even Sairey Camp held
that there were some corpses that we
needn't make much of. The suicide is
certainly among them. Let him pass at
once out of sight. 1t can do him no good
in his grave to discuss the cause that
hurried him there; it is point which his
friends would usually gladly cover, and it
certainly does not at all concern the pub
lie. The suicide is usually man who
would be daunted by the certainty of the
prompt oblivion which he pathetcally
Graves in his farewell letters. He always
writes farewell letters. He is not a man
with self-control or quiet Judgment, conse-
quently he has hankering for dramatic
effect and the good effect and good opin-
ion of the world. About one-tenth proba-
bly, of these unfortunate creatures are really
driven to self-slaughter by intolerable suf-
fering which unseats their reason; the
others are driven to impatience by ennui
or disagreeable circumstances. The tempta-
ton is strong to escape to a possible quiet
somewhere, and to a certain temporary
notoriety and compassion. The pulling Of
a trigger, and, prestol one is rid of debts
the nagging wife, the neuralgia, or school
miseries, and becomes the hero of a tragedy
to be wept over and published in all the
morning newspapers. If wo were certain
we were to be shufiled out of sight as
something to be ashamed of, we would stay
alive if only to prove that we were flora
offerings, Grape, and obituaries as much a.
other men.
, AS for the question of the insanity O
| suicides, that is not easily settled. The
Y fact that certain class of people choose tt
t live on is in its favor. Who ever heard O
, a bore blowing out his brains? Or the
e brilliant brother-in-law with two mucl
, genius to earn a dollar? Or the mode
4 woman whose thin nose hunts to cove
. everything that anybody likes? Or the
e man beside you at dinner who is up in pot
y terry? These people will endure, lik,
# prickly-pear trees, to an incredible old age
n although common sense must suggest t
n them at every turn that there are othe
a worlds where they would perhaps b.
d needed and welcomed as blessing and
g boon. If any of our readers, sane or in
Q sane, in this month of roses and sell
r slaughter are in doubt what to do wit
It their mortal coil, our advice is, wear
}. until July. Life is the most uncertain q
d all equations. There is no knowing wha
!. unknown r4-, which is always in it, ma
d turn out. One of the most successful me
n in American history was at twenty-five
n drunken loafer; one of the great reformel
Ie in England, at the same age, resolved t
er bury himself among the savages of une1
es plored Colorado; the Jews of old wer
~ weary of their lives because of the brick
es without straw which were their hard ci
a cumstance. Yet out of those bricks the
he built the pyramids which have stood ft
a ages. June is good month to die in bl
ne it is always the June of another year.
ee Y. Tribune