Morning journal and courier., 1880-08-10
The Cowardice of Suicide.
The Suicide Ofn Defa fauIter-Shirking Re-
 sponsibiIity.
lFrom the Philadelphia Ledge

IFrom the Philadelphia Ledgerl "Giving up the business seems to be the
 motto of most suicides. Not often women
 these, when there is any one dependent on them The bravery of men and women is
 not fairly matched in this. Very rare is the
 case of wife and mother killing herself and leaving innocent little ones motherless to the world. The severer the sorrow, the harder the privation, the more does she nerve her
 self to fight the battle of life for them Men who are fathers generally do quite other wise while preparing to sneak out of this world on a single-trip ticket. There was a Baltimore husband, for instance on Saturday afternoon, so profoundly affected by the death of his wife that he shot himself on her grave. That was a romantic as well as tragic end and, with the sharp lookout for the public which appears to possess all these determinedly insane people, letter-to his wife-was found conspicuously bestowed in his waistcoat pocket Dear Katie, I love you so, will be with you before night" It was scarcely necessary to address these words in writing to his deceased wife if he expected to reach her presence by the quick transit of pistol shot the letter would be behind | time, any way. It was but public memo randum intended to express to an indulgent audience, in the coroner's jury and the news papers, the depth of this bereaved mans grief and the gauge of his most sacred affec- tion.
 But the whole pathos is knocked out of the story by the further announcement that this man, who was in such hurry to be reunited to his wife, left his child, boy of four, be- hind, to be an orphan from that hour. Un- der the circumstances 1t must occur to the unprejudiced observer that the mother of the child would have been better convinced of the suicides affection if he, too, had stayed behind to look after it. There is nothing like practical proof of undying love
 and, in most cases, this shows better by liv- ing than by dying. AS mothers go in this world, it is not likely that even an angel mother could condone such an act of cow ardice-leaving her child to the risk of neg 1ect or cruelty, or possible Restitution, for sentimental reunion in spirit. It is not as if the suicide had forgotten the existence of the little boy- for he took an affectionate fare well of the child, holding him in his arms and kissing him affectionately" before he went out for the last stage scene. There oughtn't to be much mourning over that individual by his fellow-Masons, feIow-Druids, and so on, of the lodges of which deceased was a mem ber." He appears to have shirked out Of q Mason. duty, as well as a fathers, and if his wife, in the spirit could express her views of the situation, it is quite likely that the re- union was hardly happy one.
 But the list of such daily defaulters grows and grows. When merely formal Christianity
 ruled the world more than it does now pub lie opinion made short work of the suicide He was regarded with horror; spoken of un- der the breath as a monstrous thing. The brutality of the law made short work with his remains, even after the spectacle of bur- | ial at cross roads with stake driven through ! his body had gone out of date. These penal ties did not stop mad men and mad women from rushing out of the world. But the con- tempt and horror, the stigma upon all be- longing to them the felonious crime it was keld to be, all these acted doubtless as @ stay law. The property of suicides was confiscat- ed the bodies of self-murderers were drag
 fIoa s-f,.
 ishments were inflicted on the dead body
 The laws dealt brutally with the self-destroy-
 CT, and did not always take account of brain
 disease as defence for the act. Still the
 proportion of suicides to the population was,
 it is computed, less than one to five of what
 1t now is. The proportion of women to men
 who shirk out of trouble even now is as one
 in every four The masculine world grows
 more sickly, more afraid of pain. It has
 magnified it's troubles with the spread of
 comforts and luxuries. And in equal man.
 ner it grows more easy in regard to it's de-
 faulters from life.
 It would be ridiculous indeed if the morn
 ing news should annencce that A. z. had
 hung himself because he was no longer able
 to provide his family with cut-glass finger
 bowls and salmon for dinner. Yet the sui
 eide of many an involved business man, trans
 lated into plain English, means this and
 more of the same sort. The race cannot
 rough as it used to do, either by privation or
 Dodlly Sunerng, nor can It submit itself to
 sorrow or loss of friends. The poor man
 who can get no work and makes quick end
 out of it all, is too proud and too dainty to
 come upon his neighbors for bread Yet he leaves his wife and children to do it, and the
 pride, as the suffering, of many elf-murder-
 CTS, is entirely selfish. The family of the rich speculator has to come down to pork and beans all the same as if he had lived and endured his share of the suffering and brave ly worked on. Suicide should be made as
 despicable as it is cowardly when there is any
 one loft behind to suffer by tiff this cannot
 be done by the terror of the law, such as the suggested penalty of giving the bodies of sui
 cides over for dissection-then with what
 ever infamy public opinion can attach to the cowardly act of deserting wife and children by escape from the sufferings they are left to bear. Society has the right to protect itself against all shirkers who leave their burdens for the unprotected families of the general public. They defaulters by the actual duties they escape from, the charge of the helpless beings they leave behind them, and by the encouragement each fresh suicide of the kind specially under discussion gives to the next coward to sneak out of life to the betrayal of his trust.