The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-12-10
LAST LETTERS OF SUICIDES.
Pathos and Flippancy Shown by
Their Statements of Reasons.
PTODa The Posfo,, Hfo6a

4nelr statements or reasons.
From the Boston Globe.
Nothing in the newspapers is more pitiful
than the constantly recurring paragraphs
which contain the last letters OF suicide.
The pathos of them is not obscured by the
absurd inadequacy of the reasons which
they only too often advance for self-de-
struction.
In fact, the intensity of the minds
| emotions Is often greater when the trout les
are small, so curious is the mental state Of
those bordering on alteration.
Not very long ago a baron shot himself in
Livonian watering place, and his reason
was that life was too monotonous; :" and a
young man killed himself last year In a
Liverpool hotel. having written on the back
OF map, This is all through love, God
forgive me. Good-by"
Infinitely more touching was the last let
ter Of girl at Highfeld. She spoke of her
premature and self-willed DEATH and
said
" feel as though / want to be far away
from everybody, and / know very well they
can see by my face how miserable am"
She felt as though she were going mad,
but she did not forget others.
Tell - my last prayer was that he
would forget me and try to forgive me.
love him still with all my heart, but can
never marry him in this state of mind. Let
him read this, and tell him / hope he will
get some brighter and happier girl to be his
wife" Strange, morbid fears seemed to be-
set her, aud to escape them she died.
An octogenarian general left a letter
lately defending the propriety Of his suicide
Said he:
when an individual life has run It's
cycle and become a waste of nature in the
body, over whelming its mental and physical
qualities with weakness and pain to an in
telerable degree, it may with all propriety,
be removed.
such being the case with the life of the
writer, bis apology to the world is by these
terms made through his most beloved and
most intimate friends who he trusts will
appreciate the relief to him from ceaseless
distress, which, in his opinion, oughu to be
Drought by the physician who is summoned
with his drugs, surely for that purpose, but
not for cure"
A caretaker hanged himself, and his last
letter said: II have got to leave here, but
nave no money to pay for room and no
where to lay my head"
A Bermondsey grocer had not so definite
a reason as hopelessness.
BREAK 1t gently to my poor wife" he
wrote. II cannot fight the battle of life
any longer. My poor head is bursting. |
hope the Lord will provide for her and my
poor boy.n
n " al "lChsulTe UrauesmRn was unable
to bear 1t any longer" but his letter re-
quested an accountant to ''go through his
books"
But for almost f1ippant indifference, few
suicides letters equal that of an English &C
countant, who took sulphate of morphia
In Chicago hotel three years ago. He
wrote:
DEAR CHARLIE-Goodwinp promised to leave
~ that he borrowed from me at the hotel but
did not do SO. Will you tell him to pay Halo
well between State and Wabash, 20 cents, and
Newfelt Is cents That, 1 think, covers nv
whisky bills.
will my carcass 20 some medical institute
for them to try and find out why the mental
and physical machinery of my system did not
pull together. With kind regards to the boys,
who tried to make bad egg good am yours
In death as we'll as in life, DICK =.
1t is sorrowful yet altogether profitless
branch of investigation, this; and it lie a sad
fact that the opportunities for 1t grow every
year.