Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1891-07-16
Nearly All Methods OF SeIf-Murder
Have Becn Exhausted

IEESHl lnc SHlCdSo lFlOene.l
A prominent physician who has made
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 ora
zy 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 e single case of an American
negro's committing suicide, though there
have been few cases smong mulattos and
octoroons. Shall it be said, then that the
superior race is the suicidali 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 il, but it would be hard to
prove 1t. One fact, however, gives us a
Glow: Among the lowest races of man
kind and in the lowest intellectual grades
of any society suicide is practically un-
known, and among the highest in race or
culture it is extremely rare, while in the
middle or lower middle classes il is most
common. 1t is those who are midway on
the course, whether as races or individu-
ais, those who are in the struggle, who
lose heart and rush unbidden into eterni-
ty. This is only another way of saying
that where the battle is fercest there are
the must wounds and Sudden deaths; those
who have won the victory and those lying
idle in camp and designing no struggle are
fairly well satisfied with the situation.
The cultured and well-to-do PhiladeIphian
is, on the whole, as willing to live as the
naked Senegambian.
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 it is too
much for them. An English gentleman
left note to the effect that he was tired
of looming in and going out, laying down
and getting up, buttoning and unbutton-
ing" 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 number
of cases, and mere bodily suffering the
greatest. But the saddest cases are those
in which whole family dies together,
and of these the Stafford case, which oc-
CURED some years ago, was the most
mournful of all.
! 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 go 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 q cooling
drink as they lay down for the night, and
in few minutes they expired without
pain. One by one he disposed of the 9th.
er five children in the same wsy-'an in
peace and without pain, thank God" he
wrote. He then drew up his will, went
out and obtained the signature of witness
es, returned and wrote four letters, and
then swallowed the poison, and was soor
a corpse. Such a case is beyond analysis
by healthful mind. Yet we cannot sa,
it was insanity.
1t is scarcely possible to conceive of AM
method of suicide not already employed
by some one; but whenever one strikes
novel method he is sure to have a host o
imitators. Hanging, drowning, poison
ing, stabbing, or other forms of cutting
shooting and jumping from high place
are most common. Many women hay
swallowed hot Goals, powdered glass an,
other destructive articles. Cleopatra ap
piled an asp to her bosom, and it is wort
noting that she has had no imitstors
Women have & horror of serpents, ant
they are not easily obtained at the tim
desired. France leads all other nations II
suicides, as in the last year for which W
have the record two hundred and sixteei
persons killed themselves in each one mil
lion of the population, and increase is rap
i'd. OF 1872 suicides in one year, one
fifth were in Paris, and smothering b
charcoal fumes is the favorite method. i
London nearly all suicides are with tn
knife and razor, and it is plain truth thA
in this respect the British are the wors
'tcutthroats" in Europe.