New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1884-05-24
SUTCJDE and INSURANCE.

Governor Cleveland has just signed bill
which effects an important change In the state
law of life insurance. 1t provides that suicide
"of the person whose life shall have been III
"sured shall not be a defence to an action
"upon any policy hereafter issued in this State,
"whcre the person whose life shall have been
Ensured was insane when the act causing
death was committed, anything in the policy
"to the contrary Notwithstanding Under
this amendment to the existing law it is OBJ
viOuS that suicide is practically excluded from
the category Of lawful grounds for resisting
the payment of life policies, since the difficulty
of proving the sanity OF any suicide is
virtually insupcrable. Thus it has been
and is still held by many that the
very act of suicide is proof of mental
alteration, and it is scarcely possible to
conceive OF u case in which the sanity OF SUI
eide could De demonstrated, 1t might be
thought that when u man. having committed
capital crime kills himself TO avoid arrest, his
sanity might he assumed. But in such case 1t
is clear that the man does not reason lucldiy,
for il does not follow that he would be convict
ed. even though guilty nor that he would be
punished, though convicted. He therefore pre-
bare prospects of execution under the law, and
this is clearly not rational conclusion, ana
may well be regarded as afiording evidence of
insanity.
Again. the man who commits suicide to escape
from condition of physical suffering, declared
ncumLle. might be thought s1nc. But rctcc-
ton shows that H. never could have any GER
tainty as 20 the irremovability of his disease, and
therefore, his sasOning also is 'Hlsound and IN
sane. Moreover. there remains always the old
consideration which plays so importanta part
in Hamlct's soliloquy, namely, the unknown
character of the state into which suicide intro
duccs its victims. The assumption that nothing
can be- worse than the mundane condition. es-
cane from which is sought is plainly gratnl-
tous and rot to he adopted by any mind
In healthy state. The primaJdcie
conclusion in cases of suicide. in fact always
must be that ;hc melting cause was insanity
and the apparently crude theory that suicide
necessarily implies cerebral disturbance or
disease is really a very sound working hypoth-
esia and may be said to sum mp the strongest
arguments relating to the question. The dia-
Guilty of proving sanity in suicides has perhaps
determined the insurance companies to accept
the change in the law without resistance, rs a
mere formal recognition of a previously accom-
plished fact, and II this is 50 the conclusion is
probably iudicious.
In a familiar recent case where circumstan-
tial evidence was procured tending to support
the theory Of certain insurance companies that
n policy holder had insured heavily with the
intention of killing himself, it was impossible
to persuade a Jury of the truth of this allega-
ton, and no doubt one reason was, in addition
to the defects of the chain OF testimony, that
most men arr very reluctant TO believe in the
possibility of deliberate and coolly arranged
self-murder. The natural tcnacity OF life is so
strong in all healthy creatures that mankind are
justified in ascribmg an opposite desire to some
arrangement of the intellect, and the insurance
companies have probably already realized the
futllty of resistance to this common sentiment.
Henceforth, therefore, suicide will be no bar to
the payment Of life insurance, and while thus
the families of many unf0rtunates will be
enabled to collect the amount Of their policies,
there is no reason to apprehend that the temp
tations to suicide will be increased by the
change in the law