The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1884-08-08
Suicide.

Saul is the first recorded suicide, bat
ever since his desperate end the cata-
logue has assumed grim protracted-
ness wortny of Dante. 1t is curious to
recollect how comparatively modern
and how completely Western is its es-
/ timation as Q crime. Not word in
Old Testament history condemns it.
In Hindoostan ''suttee" still obtains.
nor Is the ''happy dispatch extinct in
| Japan. In Greece suicide was inflicted
by the law. In the later Roman En-
pire it became almost identified with
patriotism and Independence; but,
under the more humane development
of Christianity. life ass Imed q sacred
aspect, and to kill was to murder ones
self; and so, though pathological and
other considerations avoid generally,
| by their influence on Co-oner's juries,
| such terrible consequences. by the COM
| mon law felo de Sc for.eits his prop
erty, his will becomes void as to his
personality, and Christian burial Is de-
MED him. Yet, though crime it is
called and though in; urious and wicked
as it certa My is, it has ever been re-
garded with somethingof an awestruck
COup6SSIOu. 1Hc Ouc
tunate'' is beyond the reach of an
earthly tribunal; nor can tine prime
cause of such fell act be other than
extreme misery, for suicide from excess
| of 10y Is in fact unknown.
Wretchedness and death claim both
our sympathy and respect, and thus il
comes to pass that. whatever our alb
| stract view may be, such a strange con-
| junct on of the two main human ills
| will always evoke the pity and sorrow
of frail mortality. Ophelia and Cthello,
alike in nothing but their suicide. are
proof of this.
Indeed, there are so many kinds OF
suicides that they can hardly be ranked
together. The irresponsible mind, un-
hinged either by physical or so. allied
Mental causes, the vi tim whelmed by
''the sings and arrows of outrageous
fortune, the betrayed girl or beggared
gambler, goaded to desperation, the
man wantonly reckless of life. the mar
t, for o cause where Faith unfaithful
keeps him falsely true, the remorseless
perpetrator of some wrong or another,
all d fer SO widely in everything but
their end as to deserve separate no
menclature. Nor is it irrelevant or ir-
reverent to imagine case where the
sanctity of existence is more than out
weighed by unmerited agony. Some
poor, baffied, starving wret b. who has
none to need or mourn him, who has
strained every nerve in vain for work,
the victim of ''over-population,' of
society" of what you will, may well
argue, like poor Josephs in "Never Too
Late to Mend" that the future an not
be as bad as the present. Apart from
the religious side of the question. its
moral aspect mainly depends on the
cowardice of an act that is the last lux
ury of the luckless; and cowardice,
where none depend on the suicide.
there can be none. 1t is remarkable, If
we bear these considerations in mind.
that in the ever-increasing strain of
work and competition. and the grow
ing artinciality of civilization, suicide
has not increased more than it has.
Madness is far more prevalent, and
madness is the nurse OF suicide.
A noteworthy fac with regard to
suicide is its epidemic character. In
the year 1876 no fewer than sixty per.
ished by their own hand in Rouen, and
in 1898 1870 destroyed themselves at
Versailles. Periods of convulsiot and
agitation, which unnaturaIly e. cite.
often abnorma.y extinguish tiIS and
sensitive MINDS, and If an acorn be
planted in porcelain it will soon break
the pot. The .'W erther'' era q was
fruitful in suicide. and Goethe had to
defend himself from an imputed posi-
bility- In the same manner forms of
self-destruction seem to be famiiiarized
by initiation. The many suicides of
late years on the railroad attest this,
for to submit to being run over by n
steam engine must be surely the mode
of death most to be dreaded and last to
be planned.
Our list of suicides comprises. rough
w. the ruined. the heroic and the reck-
less. Of the ruined it would be com
monplace to speak. History. fiction,
abound with examples, and both are
united in the person of Chattetnn. Sui
eide Is, indeed the very shroud of fail
ure, and, as failure is always dramatic,
it is on this side of its interest that the
modern French drama has so
vlvidly seized. Not that like
the ancient statuesque Greek
tragedy, the suicide is wont to occur
silently and off the stage. Sara Bern
har,:t and Croizette poison themselves
vehemently, almost voraciously, and
such denOuements are rendered both
psyc ,ically and physically sensational.
Still less is it necessary here to discuss
the heroic suicides that We have
enumerated as one of several distinct
subdivisions. Cato and Seneca are
lyrical instances, and there has even
been a mock-heroic suicide, that of
Eatel, the chivalrouS chef, who killed
himself in honorable despair because
enough fish was not duly supplied to
the royal tables. and was elegiled and
eulogized by Boileau. But the sui ide
who recklessly disregards his life is q
rarer. and more fascinating study; the
voluptuary and the hypochondriac will
occasionally thus end their Gays. and
the famous story of the suicide Cluo'
commentaries how an association of
such callous Sybarites would meet at
periodical banquets, each o: which was
by some poiso1 ed Wand destined to end
the life of one of them, that one being
kept in ignorance of his doom--Lon-
aon Globe.
The Coal Pool.