The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1884-11-08

No one can fail to be struck by tle
apparently increasing number of SUI
cides 1t may be that the total perceht-
age of these distressing deaths upon tie
increment of the population has not a.
crea .ed, but it is beyond question that
suicide, as a social calamity, has BEEN
thrust on our notice of late more THAI
in remoter years. Until the satisfied
facts are made clear it would be idle ID
speculate as to the probable cause If
this increase, if there be one. 1t i,
however, not merely permissible, bit
polite, to beStow a passing glance a
the subject as a whole. Suicides MAJ
be divided roughly into two greet
classes; those in which the self-slayeis
are Intentionally conscious of what theI
are doing, and those in which they are
either unconscious of their acts or per-
form them under distinct hallucinations
or delusions of idea. This last class =
which, if not technically delinitive, will
serve for our immediate purpose
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 well aware of the
nature of the act they are
performing or attempting, and dc
the deed with a, so far, intelligent pur.
pose of escaping from misery thai
seems uncomfortable, or because OF somt
terror or shame that for the time over
whelms them. The law is mercifullT
interpreted for the sake of survivors
but, as q matter of fact, scarcely one
in hundred of the so-called cases of
temporary insanity are correctly so
described. 1t is heart breaking or
brain-teariEg trouble that makes men
and women long to die or impetuolsly
seek refuge in death, either in the be
lief that in dying 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 a majority we
believe there is: but in very few in
stances indeed is the real inner feeling
one which differs greatly from the
yearning to escape-anywhre, any
where out of this misery. TIE rate at
which men and women live nowadays
has something to do with this feeling.
Boys and girls are men and women in
aaquaintalye with, and experiences of,
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 6Lase at
two or three-and-twentv, the young
women ennuyec, Life is played out
before its meridian is reached,
or the burden of responsibility is
thrust upon the consciousness at
period when the mind can
not in the nature of things be COM
petent to cope with its weight and at
tendant difficulties. All this has been
said before. There is not a new word
or a new thought in it, and yet it is a
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 to
make existence increasingly difficult.
We are running the two year-old colts
in gripping race, and running the
stock. If able and impartial observers
would make it their business to ascer-
tain the facts about suicide, they would
be doing q good and useful work. We
believe, not without some data on
which to base our speculations, that
suicide is increasing, and that the
active cause of the evil is weak minded
ness, the result of forced development
and premature responsibility. Hasty
and too early marriages, too anxious
struggles for success in lite, too hazard
Gus ventures in business enterprise, the
rush of undisciplined and unframed
minds into the arena of intellectual
strife, and above all, that swinging OF
the self-consciOusness pendulum like
between excess of rigor in self-con-
troll and untempered license, which
constitutes the inner experience of toe
many, are proXimate causes of the
breakdown or agony of distress which
ends in suicide. The underlying cause
is Impotence, social, domestic, and
personal, of the period of preparation
which nature has ordained to stand on
the threshold of life, but which the
haste of progress" treats as delay.
1t is not delay, but development; albeit
this is lesson rash energy has yet tc
learn from sober science. London Ian.
cet