The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-09-19
MANY FASHIONS IN SUICIDES.
Fads People Have in shuming on This
Mortal Coil.

MORTAL sOll.
An epidemic of suicide was threat
enc i'm Chicago during the first six
days of August. The health depart
ment reported II successful efforts at
Self-destruCtion i'm "a week. Twelve
suicides and % deaths from other
forms of violence in "A single week is
largely in excess of the average. A
little more than half a year has now
passed, and thu far 200 deaths by sui
eide have been recorded, which makes
the average about one "A day. During
the same period i'm 1897. there were 227
suicides, an average of more than one
a day.
1t is expected that the number of
self-murders will steadily increase un-
til hot weather is succeeded by the
cooler days Of autumn. There is a
theory among medical men hat the
suicidal wave is always more or less
affected by atmospheric influences.
Suicides furnish more work for the
coroner during the extreme heat of
midsummer than at any other time.
Hospital attendants have noticed that
ON hot days many would-be suicides
are brought into the wards and saved
by the physicians. while ON cool days
it is seldom they are troubled by such
patients.
There are fashions even in suicide.
II is observed that there are Carbolic
acid fads. paris green fads, Chloroform
fads, rough on rats fads, gas route
fads and pistol fads Sometimes 20
cases, all victims of the same kind of
poison, follow one another into the nos
pitfalls and mOrgues. Then quick as the
shifting of a woman's whim the chosen
means Of heath changes. The water
route is never without it's adheTents
from one years end TO another, and
there are not a few conservatives who
still cling To morphine as the most
esthetic way of making their exit from
this truublous world. Throat cutting is
rarer and also more violent.
But the thing that naturally inter
ests most i'm these cases OF persons VINO
were reduced to the extremity of seek
ing refuge in death is the motive which
prompts to the inal act in the tragedy.
Robert Louis Stevenson told OF a man
who professed thai he would never
have sought refuge in suicide If he had
not been induced to believe in Mr.. Oar
win. Il could not bear said the re-
markable suicide, ito be descended
from an ape Recently at Brighton,
England, a young man was reported
to have killed himself because his wife
made fun of him for kissing the servant
girl. A suicide unde remarkable cir
cumstances lately occurred in the Due
de rArcade, Paris. \ IN of 26,
living with her mother. threatened to
kill herself If the latter refused her con-
sent TO her marriage. The old lady re-
pied: cit is / who will kill myself II
YOU leave me to get married. The
| daughter nevertheless got married two
days later. and the same night her
mother swallowed some nitric acid n
died in horrible agony.
In some local cases the motive seems
most trivial. only last week the chi
caeo notice recorded the story of Mamie
RutIer. an 1~S-year-old young woman
who preferred death To parental re
proof. She Iran carholic acid az her
home, woodlawn avenue n Forty
fourth place. She had been away Tor a
month without permission and was ad-
mitted to the house ON her return pN
her mother She feared a stormy scene
with the father on account OF hef ac-
lions and. remarkine that ne would
never have the opportunity of scoldlnS
her. swallowed the poison in her moth-
er's presence and before the la'''i
could prevent the act.
purinr the heat OF July teZelus
Eryzenowski. a drug clerk employed
nv Robert Ienard. S4iS Superior ave-
nue.. South Chicago, killed hlns'lt oe-
/ cause he was homesick. The doctors
called his case one OF nostalgia re
had only been in this country about a
month. and the thoughts of his old
home and the loved ones he had left
| behind were more than he could en-
dura. He took a dose OF morphine and
died in his employers house.
The Chicago police also tell Of a tall
or of the name of Albert \. Sack,
who some time last May made three
desperate attempts to die by his W
hand under the hypnotic power Of sug-
gestion. He had been studying a we'll
thumbed book entitled The Confess
sions Of a Would-Be Suicide" After
becoming saturated with the contents
Of this book he made two unsuccessful
attempts 10 shuttle OF his mortal coil
by inhaling gas. Then he became still
more determined and cut his throat
with a razor. This tailor lived at 5L2
Milwaukee n and was carried "a
St. Elizabeth's hospital in a critical con-
dition. II is believed that he was no
only imbued with pessimistic literature
but was also Of a philosophical turn
and anxious to read the mysteries OF
life in a future state. Ii is known that
many suicides go out. declaring that
death Is no more than blaCkness and
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