, 1891-08-11

Few Negroes Have Ever Taken Their
own Life-Reason of One Nan for Has
tenIng to shuttle OF the Mortal Coil.
A prominent physician who has made
a study of suicide said the other day:
Why should a man kill himself The
popular answer is, because he is crazy!"
Scientific men easily disprove that, but
are still somewhat at sea in devising a
better answer. Was the philosopher
Seneca crazy when he entered the warm
bath and opened his veins? Were all the
hundreds of Romans who made happy
dispatch of themselves insanei Surely
not.
The Greeks rarely committed suicide,
but at one time it was quite the fashion
in Rome. 1t is the rarest of ~rarities for
a slave to commit suicide, though a slave
owner often does. Extensive inquiry
fails to develop a single case of an Ameri-
can negro's committing suicide, though
there nave been a few cases among mu-
lattos and octoroons.
Shall it be said, then. hat the superior
race is the suicidal? Surely not, for the
Greeks were at least the equals Of the
Romans. The solution must be sought
elsewhere.
Perhaps religious belief has something
to do with it, but it would be hard to
prove it. One fact, however, gives us a
clew. Among the lowest races of man
kind and in the lowest intellectual grades
of any society suicide is practically I'M
known, and among the highest in a
or culture it is extremely rare, while in
the middle or lower middle classes it is
most common.
STRANGE REASONS o THE ACT.
1t is those who are midway on the
course, whether rs races or individuals,
those who are in the struggle, who lose
heart and rush unbidden into eternity.
This is only another way of saying that
where the battle is fercest there are the
most wounds and sudden deaths; those
who have won the victory and those
lying idle in camp and designing mo
struggle are fairly we'll satisfeds<itllt The
situation. The cultured and well-to-do
Philadelphia is, on the whole, as will
ing to live as the naked S~enegambian.
The causes assigned for suicide are to
the last degree curious. In many cases
well-to-do suicides simply allege that
they are tired of life-the monotony OF
1t is too much for them. An English
gentleman left a note to the effect that
he was tired of coming in and going
out, laying down and getting up, button
ing and unbuttoning."
A London cabman wrote that he had
exhausted all the pleasure of driving in
this world and wanted to see how they
drove in the other. Strange to say, love
and poverty furnish the smallest num-
Der of cases, and mere bodily suffering
the greatest.
But the saddest cases are those in
which a whole family die together, and
of these the Stafford case, which occurred
ONE years ago, was the most mournful
of all.
SALFoRD's COLD FLOODED DEED
Stafford was a druggists assistant,
threatened with the loss of position and
poverty. He succeeded in gaining his
wife's consent, as his letter said, that the
whole family should 90 together" but
she did not want to know when the fatal
dose was given. So he gave her and the
youngest child prussic acid in a cooling
drink as they lay down for the night, and
in n few minutes they expired without
pain: One by one he disposed of the
other five children in the same way
"all in peace and without pain. thank
God" he wrote.
He then drew up his will, went out and
obtained the signature of witnesses, re
turned and wrote four letters, and then
swallowed the poison, and was soon a
corpse. Such a case is beyond analysis
by a healthful mind. Yet we cannot say
it was insanity.
1t is scarcely possible to conceive of any
method of suicide not already employed
by some one, but whenever one strikes q
novel method he is sure to have a host Of
imitators. Hanging, drowning, poison.
ing, stabbing, or other forms of cutting,
shooting and jumping from high places
are most common.
Many women nave swallowed hot Goals
powdered glass and other destructive ar.
ticles. Cleopatra applied an asp to hei
bosom, and it is worth noting that she
has no imitators. Women have a horror
of serpents, and they are not easily OBJ
tanned at the time desired.
France leads all other nations in sui
cides, as in the last year for which WI
have the record 216 persons killed them
selves in each l ,000, 900 of the population
and he increase is rapid. OF 1879 sui
cides in one year one-fifth were in Paris
N smothering by charcoal fumes is tn,
~favorite method. In London nearly al
suicides are with the knife and razor
and it is plain truth that in this respec
the British are the worst ''cutthroats" il
Europe Chicago Tribune.