Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1883-06-22
SUICIDE.


his criminal waste of life Are there forces
1t work in modern civilization, which tend
% create a recklessness and disregard OF the
lvine laws of personal existence-the laws
Of individual being, the perpetuation oil the
race, and the immortality of the soul IL
80, can anything be done to remove or
these forces =?
In CHANGING over the tabuated statistics oil
suicide, the immediate causes assigned Tor
the act, We find, are, principally, financial
distress, disappointed love and ambition, ner-
vous and chronic disease, poverty, reli-
gious aud speculative excitement ana
melancholia - the result of any, or oil
none, of the foregoing causes. A moments
attention will be sufficient TO convince the
mind of the thoughtful man, that all OF
these immediate causes can be traced 10
few fundamental causes, which are inherent
in the very nature of an advanced civillza-
ton. Take. for instance, the cases oil sui
eide Immediately due TO nervous excitement
- nervous disease, or prostralion, ana
religious and speculative excitement
Who will deny that these are primarily
due to the unnatural high-prcsstlre oil our
American life, in all its departments: what
class of people, may we ask, do these SO.
ca led nervous causes prompt to sell destrIc'
ton? Almost without exception, those VINO
arc living beyond their resources, who arc
constantly borrowing from the margin oil
life. The business man who keeps ON iulI
head of steam until the delicate mechanism
of the brain and the body gives away under
the strain, and health and reason are wreck
ed together; the society woman, whose vital
forces are sapped by long.con'inued excite
ment and social dissipation; the religious en-
thusiast, who feels goaded on to unnatural
raptures and moral and spiritual excuses
who is never satisfied except with feats Of
spiritual power, and acrobatic devotions-
these are the class of people whom tot'erng
reason tempts to quench the spark OF lie !;
who commit suicide from NERVOUS prostra-
ton" and "long continued excitement. The
act is doubly criminal. In the lace oil all
law AID reason, they deliberately transgress
the limits of human endurance, and then an
ticpate the vengeance Of God by the awful
crime of snatching the penal shaft from his
still forbearing hand.
Look at the suicides Of disappointment
love denied, ambition baified. Are
not these the ultimate results OF
deep-reaching, all-prevading intemperance
| in modern.lfe? Read the newspaper &C
counts of the suicides from disappointed
love. What wild, inordinate, almost devil
ish passion stains the record. More often
| than otherwise, the disappointed one is not
content with his own destruction, but must
first accomplish that of the object of his af-
fections, or rivals. Murder and suicide
| the two ultimates of human crime, go hand
in hand What sort of love is this, to be
hallowed by the marriage bond-this fierce,
supremacy sensuous, selfish, inordinate in
fa,uation: Its true nature appears, when
| lhwaltcd in its raging course. 1t is the hid
| eous child of modern intcmpcrance, OF AL
age and civilization given over to BRITISH
excess in all things. How different from
that gentle, holy love of gen,lcr agc-love
| that desired naught so much as the welfare
and happiness of the beloved one, and re-
| joiced in Christening for its own dear sake
So also with disappointed ambition. 1t is
like Gagged beast that leaps against the bars
until il dies, rather than endure a life submis
sivc to a single bond. Modern ambition places
no bound TO ITSELF Unmindful of its oppor.
tunities, its resources, its proper aims, it viii
stop at nothing short of the highest human
attainment. Life is race in which al
rum but one winneth the przc-tcach this
to the Incorporate ambition of the times
and one of the greatest errors ant
faults of our too rapid age will bt
removed. We do not say that the moderr
man aims too high-but that he aims too far
| There is always room at the top, but not al
ways at the front. If the ambitious mar
would first gauge his own possibilities, hi
capacities, his opportunities, and then strive
to reach this mark by steady ascent, rathel
than with waxen wings to mount quickly
|
pointmcnt in this world, and fewer live
would go out like torches fallen from thu
hands that bore them.
| There remain to be considered the cases o
suicide which spring directly from physica
causes-from chronic disease and certain
forms Of melancholia. The ultimate caus'
of this class of suicides We believe TO be al
imperfect knowledge of sanitary laws, ant
carclessness in physical culture No induce
ment to self destruction, perhaps, is NOR,
subtle and irresistible, certainly none is NOR
constant, than that which springs from de
pressed physical condition and dread o
wasting disease. Many who might, by pro
per care of their bodies, have reached rip
and happy old age, by disregardng the law
of hygiene, of morality, apd personal cleanli
ness have implanted the seeds of dread ant
incurabe disease, from which the only es
cape to them, seems the awful leap into eterni
ty. If the community were properly cnlight
ened on the subjects of pure living, proper food
ventilation, drainage, cleanliness, exercise
clothing, the requisite amount of sleep, over
work, and recreation of wholesome sort
the yearly number of suicides, we can no
doubt, would be very greatly diminished
Three causes, then, we find to be the mai
sources of all our suicides -high-pressur
life, intemperance, and IN imperfect mora
and sanitary condition of the people. Ca
these causes be removed? We believe tina
they can, at least, be corrected; in time
perhaps, we may outgrow them. Until the
the influence of the press the pulpit and @
society itself should be directed strongly an
unitedly to the correction of these our grca