St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1884-12-13
Suicides.

No one can fail to be struck by tho
apparently increasing number OF sui
cides. 1t NAV be that the total percent
age of these distressing deaths upon the
increment of the population has not in
creased, but it is beyond question that
suicide, as social calamity, has been
thrust on our notice of late moro than
in remoter years. Until the statistical
facts are made clear it would be idle to
speculate as to the probable cause OF
| this increase, if there be one. 1t is,
however, not merely permissible, but
polite. to beStow passing glance on
the subject as whole. Suicides may
be divided roughly into two great
classes; those in which the self-slayerS
are intentionally conscious of what they
are doing, and those in which they are
either unconscious of their acts or per-
| form them under distinct Authorizations
| or decisions of idea. This last class
| which. if nottechnically definitive, will
serve for our immediate purposes
not, we think, large one. Without
hair-splitting. it may roughly be said
that the great majority of those who
kill, or try to kill, themselves in these
| modern times and in civilized commu
mites are perfectly we'll aware of the
nature of the act they are
performing or attempting. and do
the deed with a. so far, intelligent pur-
pose of escaping from misery that
seems uncomfortable. or because of some
terror or shame that for the time over
whelms them. The law is mercifully
interpreted for the sake of survivors
but, as 4 matter of fact, scarcely one
in a hundred of the so-called eases of
Temporary insanity are correctly so
described. 1t is heart breaking or
braiu.tearirg trouble that makes men
and women long to die or Impetuously
seek refuge in death, either in the be-
lief that in diving they will sleep. or
that consciousness will end in eternal
oblivion. We do not say that there is a
clearly defined process of reasoning in
all these cases, though in majority we
believe there is but in very few in
stances f1idead is the .eal inner feeling
one which differs greatly from the
warming, to escape-anywhere, any
where out of this misery. The rate at
which men and women live nowadays
has something to do with this feeling.
BOYS and girls are men and women in
acquaintance with, and experiences O.,
life and its so-called pleasures and sor-
rows. at an age when our grandparents
were innocent children in the nursery.
The Young men of the day are jtaSe at
two or three and-twenty, the young
women cnnuyee. Life is played out
before its meridian is reached
! or the burden of responsibility i:
thrust upon the consciousness a
a period when the mind car
not in the nature of things be com
petent to cope with its weight and at
; tendant difficulties. All this has beer
said before. There is not a new wore
:, or a new thought in it, and yet it is s
very terrible and pressing subject
, We can not give it the go-by. Forced
education commenced too early in life
and pressed on too fast is helping t.
make existence increasingly difficult
We are running the two year-old colt
in a crippling race. and running tn
) stock. If able and impartial observer
J. would make it their business to ascer
d tain the facts about suicide, they woul
It be doing a good and useful work. w
e believe, not without some data OF
:, which to base our speculations, tina
h suicide is increasing, and that tn
d active cause of the evil is weak-minded
II ness, the result of forced development
e and premature responsibility. Hast
r and too early marriages, too anNiou
n struggles for success in lite. too hazard
n Gus ventures in business enterprise, tn
It rush of undisciplined and urtraine
l. minds into the arena of intellectus
is strife. and above all, that swinging {
D. the self-consciouSness- pendulum-llk
between excess of rigor in self-cor
troll and untempered license, whic
constitutes the inner experience OF to
many, are proximate causes OF tn
p breakdown or agony of distress whic
r ends in suicide. The underlying caus
ut is Impotence, social. domestic, an
e personal. of the period of preparatio
G which nature has ordained to stand o
q the threshold of life, but which tn
haste of progress treats as della,
1t is not delay, but developments; Abe
I'd this is lesson rash energy has yet
g. learn from sober Standardization La