Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-21

ideas ofscriptural times. Itremained for the
Christian church to inaugurate the first real
and decisive crusade against suicide as
crime. and in this, it has never faltered.
The voice that was lifted up In the second
century, is practically the same which now
denounces the act as one at variance with
God, man and nature.
LEGAL STATUS OF SUICIDE.
The legal enactments against suicides,
whether heather, pagan or Christian, would
make an interesting chapter by themselves.
Suffice it. that so far as the former are con-
cerned, they chiefly distinguished against
the class known as dishonorable suicides.
But under Christian civil and Ecclesiastical
law the property of all suicides whatever
was conhscated, their bodies treated to the
grossest indignities, and their souls doomed
to eternal torments. Most of these laws and
penalties were repealed, however after the
Napoloneonic wars, the Code Napoleon rec
ognizing the pagan right of every man over
his own life, That suicide is still regarded
as something of public and private dis
grace, is due to the influence of Christian
canon law; but both church and public now
unite in a more merciful judgment as to the
unfortunate's future state, throwing over the
charitable mantle of supposed temporary
insanity
The causes that underlie suicide are SUBJ
stantially the same at all times and places,
and may be generally set down to a revolt
against the duties and harnesses of life, or
to deliberate and well considered motive,
founded upon a supposed 3ustifable cause.
Specifically, the revolt and motive change
with the time and the place. Prof O'Dea,
classihes the special causes of modern sui
eide as follows: Race and nationality, sex,
hereditary, insanity, imitativeness, mental,
affectional, physical and external. The
mental causes include education, literature,
scietce and art, and, above all, religion.
The affectional, domestic and love troubles.
The physical, diseases more especially of
the brain, the digestive organs, the lungs,
and diseases appertaining to the sex
nature and the excessive use of in
toxicants and narcotics. The ex-
ternal causes include occupation, financial
standing, environment, climate and atmos-
pherie changes, which last are, however,
principally local. As to age, the maximum
rate of suicide occurs between % and 90.
The suicide of children is purely of the in
stinctive and unreasoning kind, due not
uroften to a spirit of revenge for cruelties,
actual or imagined; or else from a supersen-
sitive nature that cannot brook unkindness
or neglect. In matters of sex, the proper
tion of women to men is to 3. In harbar-
Gus countries, however, the number is more
equal; also, in cases of an afectIonal and
domestic nature.
INFLUENCES FAvoRING SUICIDE.
Hereditary exercises real though as yet
undetermined influence on suicide. To
insanity, one half of all seli-inficted deaths
are probably due. Under the head of lmi-
tation, come the epidemics of suicide that
have arisen from time to time in DAYS
ancient and modern, and which are gener-
ally the result of religious frenzy, or a
common and invincible feeling of despair.
Prominent among these is that of Versailles,
in 1793 during which ], 800 victims per-
ished. The educational influences are
chiefly those arising from cerebral irrita-
tion, and may be done away with by better
systems of instruction. Literature stands
convicted of moral eau ses fostering suicide,
vicious and sensation al books and papers
having direct influence on many of its
underlying motives. Science and art have
more to do with the purely mental and
physical side. Lack of religious faith (uni-
versally followed BY laxity of norals), is
one of the most fruitful causes of suicide. A
creed that tends to religious trust and sub
mission counts fewer suicides than one less
restrictive and more investigating. Thus it
is that the Roman Catholic Church num-
bers fewer suicides than the Protestant and
in a country where there is universal free
dom of thought on religious matters the rate
of suicide is proportionately large. Wit
ness Germany; her per cent of suicides is
2O6 in 1,0O0,000 inhabitants; whereas in
Catholic Spain it is but IA.
As to occupation, the per cent Of suicides
is naturally higher among those of sedent-
ary character; II per cent of suicides,
furthermore arise from causes attendant on
poverty and financial disgrace. National
differences concerning suicide are based on
temperament, industries, environment
and population. The densely populated,
the more incorporate, irreligious and unfav-
orably situated centers yield the larger per
cent. But take it all in all, there are no abso-
lutte laws regulating suicide. Any cause that
deUeiops the subjective or sentimental side
of people or of an individual to the detri-
nlent of the objective or practical, may be
set do1Cn as an influence JdUoring suicide.
Most OF our modern suicide is strictly i'm
pulsive in character, and that which the
Stoics would accordingly term vulgar, and
without sufficient cause. One thing is
tolerably certain; insanity is not near so
frequently the cause of suicide as the char
ltably minded are inclined to imagine. As
to times and seasons, more suicides occur
during June, and fewest in December; more
during hot than cold or damp weather, and
more during the early hours of the morning
and at noon.
The methods and means employed have
and have always had certain sameness
about them, though here and there are ex-
traordinary and eccentric exceptions.
Drowning and poisoning are most common
among women, and the use of firearms and
of the rope among men. The moral
aspect of the deed itself cannot be
too deeply deplored. Apart from <the
religious culpability attached by Christen-
dom to the act, there is in it little savoring
of human courage and dignity, and vast
deal savoring of human weakness and cow
ardice. Better for the maxim, Pagan though
it be, that 'No man should abandon his
post in life without the orders of the Great
Commander' MARK f GRISwOID