The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-07-23
FALLING LONG DISTANCES.
Speculation as to How People Feel
Who Take Big TumbIes.
From the San Francisco Chronicle.

WnO rake Big IumDIoS.
From the San Francisco Chronicle.
The amount of mental or physical suffer
ing that immedia ely precsdes death has al
ways been q iestion of interest. No re-
porter would think of describing an execu
tion without ate npting to give an analysis
of the feelings Of the condemned man on the
scaffold The remembrance of the death
agony of loved one often cluses more
acute agony than the idea Of eternal sepa-
ration. People have brooded until they
were almost driven to madness over the
thou Eht that they might be buried alive and
awake t. brief con,cI BUSINESS in their collins
Ia this skeptical and pessimistic age it Is
not so mucn death that Is feared as the
pains that are supposed to accompany 1t.
Novel; IS have Attempted to picture the
thoughts Of a dro %ning man during the
few seconds that intervene between submer-
sion and total loss Of sense. Oae of the
most graphic pages in Victor Hugo is that
III which he imagines the sensations of a
man fallel overheard in mid-Ocean while
the ship is pulling out of sight and he is
gradually lasping into insenslollity. Sym
pathetic persous have specialized on the
agony of anticipation t lat must fill the
mind of a man falling from great hight,
that he was dead before he struck the
earth.
Psychologists have interested themselves
in the general question, and especially in
that in reference 10 persons falling from
great nights. Persons who have been re-
su cit ted after drown Ig or hanging have
been able to give me description OF their
sensations, bat those who have fallen con-
siderable distances AID ped death have
not, so far as known, thrown any valuable
light on the subject. 1t has been suppo 20
that the thrill OF terror analog Ius to t lat
which any one feels whel he percsives that
he is in danger Of falling aud saves himself
by sudden effJr6 is Of suca Intensity whel
the elevation is lofty as to immediately
arrest the vital functions aud cause death
without moments suffering. In cases
of this kind the newspaper reports usually
adj the consoing rhodgnt That the vicLi II
Of the accident or suicide WAS probably
dead before striking the earth, and conse-
qua lily spared b 9TH physical and mental
suffering. There never see ms to have beeI
any solid foundation for the presu nption,
since it is difficult to suppose that a
person could be asphyxiate1 in falling for
three or four seconds at tue rate of from
fifty to ssveaty-five feet a second, the
ii ne it approximately takes to reach Q
earth from an elevation OF from $50 to $50
feet.
The most that we can suppose is that
respiration is suspended and that the re-
sui s a sort of sylcops or condition Of par
tial lconscious less not of sufficient du a
ii u to cause asphvxil. Almost any one
can hold his breath for a minute. Persons
VINO give pubic exhibitions remain easily
under water for two minutes, aud coral and
pearl divers for more thai twice that
length of time There are facts on record
to prove this view of the case. Intend Ag
suicides who have thrown the nselveS fro Al
the suspension b idge at Cincinnati, a
hight of eighty feet, nave beea saved. To
fall this distance would require about tw
seconds, and ths striki got the water would
be the principal thing to be considered. A
more remarkable case is that of the young
Woman WAC threw herself from the Clifton
bridge England, which Is at J.e hight of
$50 feet above the river The time Of the fall
was about four seconds, as there was a
strong wind blowing, and her skirts bel g
inflated slightly retarded the do inward
move nent. Sac was at once tishe1 out of
the water a4d taken to the hospital, where
she soon recovered. II r only Injuries were
some Commissions the highs back and
a sill Sht displacement If the br a,t)one. OF
sixteel other who had attempted >uici e
from the same bridge only on9 MAJ had
been ia en- from the water alive, and h
| survived but snort time. The youn :
woman in question remembered nothing
from the mo .nent she left the bridge until
she recovered conscious lees.
7 doctor w1o reported the previous
case said lat he had never known before of
he survival of any one that id falel 80
feet Sdch an insoanc-, however, occ Irred
il Paris at a time wnen tnro Wing ones sell
| from one of the lofty collm IS or oJuer pub
| lie monuments was tavori5e mode of sui
| eide. A man thre " himself from the col
Il an of the Basuile, whicl is 1876 feet in
| hight, out, failing on a tent erected for
some workmen at he base, rebounded and
| struck the sidewalk. Tns fall had been
| deadened in such a fashion that, though
painfully b-ui ed, he was aule to get up and
| walk away shortly at. er Yard, if no. cured
| of the suicidal mania, resolved, probably
in future to seek deatn BY a less painful auG
| more certa II method.
Toe most nosao.e case OF survival after
! falling long distances Is that rela ed by &
| Freucn writer, II. de Pa'yIlle. 1t Is that
| of an East Indian living Oh the isla I'd oil
| Oghiu, who fol from a cliff 800 meter,
| high, which is just tie altitude of the
| E. tfel tower. His fail was broke by masses
| of dense vegetati N at the foot Of tle pre-
cipice, and ne escaped wit TOUT serious in
jurles. Il is .rdly probable that the Eff
! tower will ever be a favOrlJe place for sui
cids:, the outer slope of the walls re lderina
perpe Idicular fall for any considerab.
distance impos ible. The favorite meth ID
at present in Paris is to leap from the upper
wiud w OF tho tall houses t. tle street OIL
into tue court, and deaoh is certail If
person mas no do,uicile no would perhaps
ind the towers or otter lofty monuments
co venlent; but, as in Italy. all perso
who have in their man or anything su Sges
tive of suicide are watched, and in mos
cases it is the rule never t. leave a person
acne at tAe top of high monument. Tn,
! last effort to CO nmit suicide IN this manner
failed ignominiou4ly in Paris. A man wac
! hal MT been sufficiently watched threw
himself few mon hs ago from the top o
the Arch Of Triu nph, which is about a
high as the columns OF the BAstie. He
was caught by the projecting cornice a fe :
feet below, whence ne wa, removed with
great difficulty, blu not seriously hurt.
Is almost the only C lse OF the kind tn t ha
occurred for ghe last ten years, though tn,
Par suicides average nearly two week
! ia ing the year in its e tir t..
| The record shows lhA lJJ,UOJ stranger
pass the mig It iu New Yo k 365 DAYS il
Il NOur ard ,a, -