Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-01-23
Suicide AND CURIOSITY.

Pcople Possessed of Morbid Cravings
Those Who Derive an Unwholesome
->tisfaction From the Literature of Self
slaughter.
Human sympathy has its morbid
cravings. There used to be an old lady
in Newport, who had an unwholesome
hankcring for funerals. She would get
up early in the morning and run for the
newspaper to see if anybody had died
during the night; and if her search for
melancholy tidings were rewarded bya
glimpse of black lines and obituary
verse, life would seem at once to
possess new interest for her. A we'll
conducted funeral was in her judgment
one of the most satisfactory events Of
life. She liked everything about it
the %neighborly offices of washing,
dressing and caring for the dead; the
darkened windows and the dangling
strcamers of Grape on the bell-pull; the
undertaker's frosty smile and tip-toe
gait, the minister's touching remarks
and prayers for the relatives on the
second floor; the long line of carriages
and the drive Though the cemetery.
She was very helpful in time of be-
reavemcnt. She was elderly in her
ways, was willing to do many
things which nobody else cared
to do, and had a melancholy
smile and sympathetic voice that
comported with the saddles. scenes of hui
man atlliction and separation. Her
usefulness on such occasions was gen
orally recognized, and she was invari-
ably sent for to assist in making the
preliminary arrangements, and to
have special charge of household at
fairs during the brief interval between
death and burial. But it was an open
secret hat she enjoyed every funeral
in which she had a hand; and it was
one of the grim pleasantrics of the,
town that she had insisted upon liv-
ing to an advanced age because she
was unwilling to die unless she could,
receive a special invitation to attend
her own funeral.
Probably it is this same morbid ele-
mcnt in human nature which derives
an unwholesome satisfaction from the
literature of suicide. There are no
columns in the newspapers that are SO
widely read as those containing re-
citals of self-murder. Whether there
be much or little method in the mad
ness Of despair that drags the victim
out OF the world, the melancholy
story is sure to have an uncanny fas-
cination for 6 very large class in the
community. Human sympathy is or
dinarily wholesome and healthful.
Why should it have a morbid interest in
anything 50 cmbittercd as the mad
dening unrest, the agonizing suffering,
and the final act of desperation of the
wretched suicide? Why should read
ers with unimpaired digestion, sound
minds and fair prospects in life evincn
SO keen an appreciation of the motives
that impel their fellow-crcatures to end
their existence by their w hands in
the outer darkness of despair. Why
should men and women of healthy
mental organization, who are surround
ed with comforts and leading quiet,
uneventful lives, follow with morbid
curiosity the closing act of the unhap-
py suicides tragedy? Indeed, it is
not easy to explain the popular appe-
tite for such ~recitals as We're recorded
in Yesterdays local columns. The lux
ury of enicying other mems sorrows
md troubles is not a taste that is ordi-
nsrily INDUCED. Human nature is not
apt to distress itself unnecessarily and
to eNpend it's sympathies upon the vic
tins of misfortune. If it derives a real,
albeit melancholy, species of entertain
ment from the fate of the suicide, it
must be because there is a secret con
viction that human life becomes at
times an enigma that can easily battle
the wisest understanding, and that the
earth is haunted everywhere with the
pale ghosts of unfultillcd hopes bcckon-
ing the victims of illusion toward the
abysses of despair.
Suicide has its grim pleasantries, its
sentimental vagarics, its ineNtricable
mysteries, as well as all the vulgar as
poets OF selfishness, egotism and cow
ardice. 1t is sometimes dull and me-
thodical, every step in the process of
leaving the world being carefully cal
culated in advance; and then again it
is capricious and impulsive, ending in
a sudden leap from a bridge and a quick
exclamation, 81 might as well end it
here!' 1t may be the outcome of law
less passion OF envenomed jealousy, or
it may be, as in Brooklyn recently, the
breakingo OF q faithful heart overwhelmed
with grief for the loss of q life COM
panion. 1t may be accompanied with
the fantastic beFlcst of the cold clay to
the masters Of dissection and a last
prayer that the skeleton shall not be
unnamed in a medical museums; or it
may be marked only by a decent desire
to make as little trouble as possible for
strangers, as when the Paterson suicide
shot himself on the stoOp in order to
keep the furniture and carpet indoors
unspottcd with blood. Suicide has as
wide a range of possibilities and con-
tingencies us the checkcred course OF
human life affords. 1t has a thousand
varying phases of motive, method and
cause, so that every new case seems to
have an individuality of its own. Pos
sibly this element Of unccasing variety
explains one secret of the fascination of
the subject: The Newport crone found
a fresh and characteristic pleasure in
every new funeral. In like manner the
literature of suicide never loses its zest.
but has ever a novel charm for morbid