The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-07-27
Way SHOULD A MAN sUIo1DE9
Nearly All Methods of Self-murder
Have Been Exhausted.
From the Chicago Tribune

FROM tdS CHtCusO LTtOHHos
A prominent physician, who has made a
study of suicide, said the other day:
Why should man kill himself9 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? We're all the hundreds of
Romans who made happy dispatch of them
selves insaue9 Surely not.
Tho 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
a few cases among mulattos and octoroons
Snail it be said, then, that the superior
race is the suicidal? Surely not, for the
Greeks were at least the equals Of the Ro-
mans. Tho solution must be sought else
where.
Perhaps religious belief has something to
do with it, but 1t would be hard to prove it.
One fact, however, gives us a clew: Among
the lowest races of mo nkind and in the low,
est intellectual grades OF any society suicide
Is practically unknown, and among the
highest in race or culture it is extremely
classes it is most common. 1t Is those VINO
are midway on the course, whether AZ races
or individuals, those who are in the strug-
GLE who lose heart and rush unbidden into
eternity. This is only another way OF saw
ing that where the battle Is fiercest there
are the most wounds ana sudden deaths
| those who have won the victory and those
| lying Idle in camp and designing no strug-
| gle are fairly well satisfied with the situa-
ton. The cultured and well>to-do Phila-
| delphian 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 weli-to-
| do suicides simply allege that they are tired
| or lfe-the monotony of it is too much for
them. An English gentleman left note TO
the effect that he was tired of coming in
and going out, laying down and getting up,
| butsoning and unbuttoning." Lond n
| cabman wrote that he had exhausted all the
| pleasure OF driving in this world aud 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 a whole family dies together, ard
| of these the Stafford case, which occurred
| some years ago, was the most mournfu of
! all.
Stafford was a druggists assistant, threat
| eCed with the loss Of position and proverty.
ne succetueu III gaining MS Wlre6 consent
as his letter said, that the whole family
should 60 together. y but she did not want to
know when the fatal dose was given. So
he gave her and the youngest child prussic
acid in cooling drink as they lay down for
| the night. and in few minutes they ex
| pired without pain. One by one he disposed
| Of the other five children in the same way
''all in peace and without pain, thank God, :"
be wrote. He then drew up his will, went
out aud obtained the signature OF witnesses,
returned and wrote four letters, and tuen
swallowed tue poison, and was soon u
corpse. Such case is beyond analysis by
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 a novel
method he Is sure TO have hos. Of imita-
tators. Hanging. drowning, poisoning,
and other forms Of cutting, shooting, and
Jumping from high places are most COM
mon. Many women have swallowed hot
Goals, powdered glass, and other de-
structive articles. Cleopatra applied an
asp to her bosom, and it is worth