The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-06-04
SUICIDE AND SCIENCE.
Nearly All Methods of Self-Murder
Have Been Exhausted.

Rave Been Exhausted.
From ire Philadelphia Press.
A prominent physician, who has made q
study of suicide. said the other day:
Why should q man kill himselfi 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 veins7 Were all the hundreds
OF noble Romans who made happy dispatch
OF themselves insane? 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 de-
velop a single case of an American Negroes
committing suicide, though there have been
few cases among mulattoes and octoroons.
Shall it be said; then, that the superior race
is the suicidala 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 clew. Among
the lowest races of mankind, and in the
lowest intellectual grades Of any society,
suicide is practically unknown, and among
the very highest 10 race or culture it is ex-
tremely rare, while in the middle or lower
middle classes it is most common. It is
those who are midway on the course,
whether as races or individuals,
those who Gre in the struggle,
who lose heart and rush unbidden into eter-
nifty. This is only another way of saying
that where the battle is hercest there are
the most wounds and sudden deaths; those
who have won the victory and those lying
idle in camp and designing the struggle are
Pai IL oa4 a~I L. ell
cultured and well-to~do Philadelphian 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 10 is too much for
them. An English gentleman left note to
the effect that he was tired of coming In
aud going out. lying down and getting up,
buttoning aud unbuttoning." A London
oabman wrote that he had exhausted all the
pleasure of driving in this world and wanted
70 see how they drive in the other Strange
to say, love and poverty furnish the small
est number of cases, and mere bodily suffer-
ing the greatest But the saddest cases are
those 10 which a whole family dies together,
and of these the Stafford case, which occur
red come years ago was most mournful of
all.
He was druggists assistant, and was
threatened with 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 a cooling drink as they lay down for
the night, and in few minutes they ex-
PRED without pain. One by one he dis
posed of the other five children in the sams
way-"all in peace and without pain, thank
God" he wrote. He then drew up his will,
went out and secured the signatures Of wit
nesses, returned and wrote four letters, and
then swallowed the poison and was soon a
corpse. Such case is beyond analysis by
healthy 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 novel
method he is sure to. have a host of imi-
tators. Hanging, drowning, poisoning,
stabbing, or other forms of outing, shoot
ing, and jumping from high places are
most common. Many women have swal-
lowed hot Goals, powdered glass and other
destructive articles. Cleopatra applied an
asp to her bosom, and it is worth noting
that she has had no imitators. Women
have horror of serpents, and
they are not easily obtained at
the time desired France leads all other
nations in suicides, as in the last year for
which we have the record ZIG persons
killed themselves In each l,000, 900 of the
pcpulati n, and the increase is rapid. OF
1872 suicides in one year one-hfth were in
Paris. and smothering by charcoal fumes is
the favorite method. In London nearly all
suicides are with the knife and razor, and 1t
is plain truth that in this respect the Brit
ish are the worst ''cut-throats" in Europe.