Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-09-29
A School, Boys Suicide.

A ScnOOl'bOy'S suicide.
The season has been remarkable for
g., suicidal madness, if not for its inc
~ ulsment heat. The cases of self-de.
%.,u,ction reported have been in every
ssnk of life, the last being that of Mrs.
allison. wife of the Iowa Senator. The
stranqest aspect of the PREVAILING
sonia for self-murder is the fact that Il
i induced by prosperity as well as by
rdversity. The three young men whose
melancholy fate vas the subject of re-
actions in these columns we're c
."l as the world takes account Of
success. One was a lucky inventor.
who was about to make a happy mar
r;ago: another was a physician with a
nrosperous career open before him; and
he third had inherited wealth and was
IN every respect favored by fortune.
Death was to each of them a REFUGE
from a tranquil, not a gloomy past,
haunted with sad memories; a sudden
escape from a joyous present, not n
Of agonizing suffering or maddening
unrest; the remuneration of a future
radiant with hope, not ominous of des-
Fnair. There have been many similar
Instances which have seemed equally
linexplicable. Yesterdays issue Of the
Tribune contained three records of this
nature. One was the suicide of a Young.
prosperous and happily married lawyer
in Denver; another was the sudden
dcath-plunge into the Chicago river of
a Young man who, while crossing q
bridge with a companion, cut short q
commonplace conversation with the
exclamation: 81 might as we'll end it
here!!' and the third was the death of
a school-boy by his own hand in his
fathers house in Fifth avenue,
The last case seems the saddest of all,
for the simple reason that the school
period is generally accounted the hap
pest period of life. Early manhood has
its chill of disappointment that goes to
the heart, its n of disenchantment
that bewilders vel if it does not impair
the Judgment. John Stuart Mill had
an evenly poised mind and great intel
lectual resources, but there was q period
in the flush of his manhood when he
was unspeakably wretched. There was
no cause for heart-ache or WEAKNESS of
mind. His education was completed {;
he was praised by all his fathers learned
companions; . great career was pre-
dicted for him. But the time came
when his philosophical studies, the pol
itics and economics of the day, and all
human relationships, ceased to interest
him. This period of depression, from
which he was finally rescued by music
and Wordsworth's poetry, is infinitely
described in q wonderful chapter of his
Autobiography. Experiences akin to
this are by no means uncommon. The
early manhood of an educated man has
its hours of melancholy and unrest. 1t
Us a period of disenchantment, when
self-confidence bends like a dry reed,
when faith in human nature and an
orderly Providence ruling in mems af-
fairs is cruelty stabbed, and the pale
ghosts of young hopes walk the earth.
But these are experiences which boy
hood can not anticipate. Youth is ac-
curing its powers in the school-room,
not ascertaining its limitations. In the
orderly round Of studies and duties each
day has its appointed work and its def
mite object. There is no room in the
school-day world for premature loss of
faith, an embittered sense of disappoint-
ment, a suspicion of the i%nadequacy of
human life, OF any of the carking cares
with which maturity is vexed. There
are no inscrutable enigmas to battle the
boyish understanding. The questions
of life coming before it are as definite
and as soluble as the problems in arith-
metic. To the school-boy the thought
can never occur that there must be an
other world to explain this one. He
takes the present life as something of
which anything or everything is to be
made, and is satisfied.
For these reasons the fate of the
school-boy in the Fifth-avenue mansion
seems ~unspeakably sad. He was a lad
Of eighteen, either in college or pre-
pared to enter it, and was apparently
approaching early manhood under the
most fortunate circumstances. It was
the vacation season; the pressure of
classroom work had been removed;
there was every reaso why the boy
should be happy and contented. Yet,
instead of looking forward with eager
ness to the coming years, he shrank
rom them in a fit of sudden despera-
ton. He is reported to have been
moody and melancholy, although in
good health, and to have evinced little
interest in what vas happening around
Eaim: On Sunday evening he joined the
family at dinner and seemed to be in
better Spirits: laughing and talking
more than was his won't. 1t was the
last flash Of interest in a world that had
grown stale and Improbable to him,
!onag as he was. When he left the
!a'le it was to go to his room and shoot
fllmself.-M Y. Tribune.