The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1878-05-26
SUICIDES In FLORENCE.
The Paradise OF Suicides killing Oneself
TO Escape EnnaI.


Florence the Beautiful. as the Italians call
1t, is in a bad way financially. In other
words, 1t has adopted the fashion Of bank
ruptcy, and bankruptcy in the Old World IS
far more serious than 1t Is In the New. With
a population of 10000, it owes more than
Milan and Naples combined, representing q
population of near ,0oO, 900, and taxes are so
many and so large that they have crippled
enterprise and paralyzed trade. Everything,
except crime, is stagnant in the Tuscan capt.
tai; the population Is steadily decreasing, and
the sole source Of revenue to the citizens the
past season has been from foreigners and
tourists, who have been preyed upon
with even more than the usual mercl-
to have lost the cheerfuiness
and vivacity for which they have been re-
nowDed, and to have surrendered faith In
their favorite proverb, God helps the light
hearted Their want Of material prosperity
has affected them mentally and morally, driv-
ing them to suicide and every kind Of crime.
Self-destruction has increased at such rate
that Florence now exceeds hitherto
the first city Of civilization in this respect
In the number OF suicides, proportionaily, as
six to one. Some OF the cases are eXtraOrdi-
nary handsome young woman, fearing
that she might be abandoned by her lover,
dOnned her best rairnent, lcaped from her
chamber in the third story, and dashed her
brains out. A young man of distinguished
family shot himself because his affianced
bride had been taken seriousyill. charming
girl, after bidding adieu to her lover on
his death-bed went into tho street
and perforated her brain with pistol ball.
A young officer, not hearing from his parents,
residing in or near Ferrara, blew out his
brains student who had failed at col
lege examination, threw himself before a rail
way train and was killed instantly. A gem
tlernan Of twenty-five found life such bore
that he ended 1t with q stiletto. Another
breaks his neck from q window because he
tn In pDnG,iIpra-
ton that would not have entered his head in
this country; while, on the other hand, u
bride Of sixteen, on the tenth day Of the
honeymoon, browns herself In n we'll Two
walk hand in hand into a canal and perish In
one another's arms. A Fl0rentine made his
qllietus because he was not handsome; and
the daughter of an illustrlous family left
the satan in which brilliant company
had assembled, fatally inhaled the
fumes OF choroform, leaving iocuar
note ordering II fresh supply Of champagne
! il she should recover. These and other sui
cidcs have taken place on the Arno in short
time; while many crimes Of a diabplical kind
for his sister, and shoots her dead as she Is
coming out OF church, for no other reason
than that she could not furnish him with eny
more money. A convict just returned from
ten years imprisonment strangles q little
girl to get possession Of u single Ira (ten
cents, A father stabs his son to death be.
cause he is singing, in the presence Of his
wife and daughter; an apprentice Stays his
master for reproving him, a boy murders
his elder brother for accidentally stepping on
his foot, and a day laborer throws bomt
into funeral procession of his fellow work.
men, fatally or seriously wounding six OF
seven Of them, for what he had conceived tc
be slight The art capital, just now, Is sc
reproducing its MEDIEVAL honor8 that it de-
serves to be called, instead Of Florence the
Beautiful, Florence the b aleful.