Arizona republican., 1903-05-11
STRAWBERRIES AND SUICIDE
Remarkable Conclusion Reached by a
 Washington Official.

An ingenious official in Washington. whose gainful occupation is that of as sistant secretary to the district com mission, and who by way of recreation and amusement is a student of the sta tistics and causation of suicide, has reached the interesting conclusion that many cases of self destruction are due to eating straw berries out of season. His reasoning is so logical and his conclusions so convincing that tO fol- low them is a pleasure. For example:
 Suicides are more frequent in the spring than at any other time. There must be some reason for it. and some time ago I suggested that strawberries were to blame. Investigation l have made have confirmed me in my opinion. Eating strawberries out of season in variably produces mental depression, and it is when people are in low sDir- it's that they think of suicide and kill themselves. I do not believe there would be so many suicides if people would not eat strawberries until they are riCe at home."
 The fact that premature indulgence in strawberry eating causes mental de pression is matter of general if not universal experience. There are many | | One is the price The young man who begins to supply his best girl with 1 southern berries at fifty cents a plate or at seventy-five cents to S1.25 a pint box naturally finds his contact With | this alluring vegetable conducive to mental depression. We had not sup posed that this often assumed the form of suicidal mania, but it might very well do so if the girl is inconsiderate. Another reason for the depressing in fuence of the premature berry is that l 1t is rot nearly as good as it is eX- DoCted to be by those who buy it. Its | searching acidity, which produces sen sations at the hinges Of the jaw sug- 1 gesting incipient humps. is extremely
 disappointing. and disappointment is always depressing.
 The quaint saying of Dr. William
 Butler concerning the strawberry, inn mCrtalzed in quotation by IZaak Wal
 ton" Doubtless God could have made
 better berry, but doubtless God never | Gid'-does not acquire meaning until
 the strawberry is cheap and abundant. | Concerning the frostbitten apologies for that fruit which tempt us against our judgment and in spite of expert ence, the paraphrase would be more propriate-Doubtless God could have
 made a better berry, and doubtless He commonly does.
 There is also another ar ~-cl bet ter reason why the premature straw
 berry produces depression and induces
 suicide. It is found in the ear-split- ting, soul-harrowirg cries of the ven-
 dors of this unreasonable fruit Their
 pernicious activity begins early in l nd octc ef.. ar.o so common that there is no -roft in
 hawking them. The leather-lu -lunged
 Hooligans who engage in this business might drive to suicide any sensitive person under whose window they sing their tuneless and monotonous solos The, wonder is not that so many reach the conclusion in the weeks preceding strawberry time that life is rDt worth living, but that so many of those who have nerves manage to survive this trying period and resist the morbid impulse of self-destruction. Those oi
 our readers who are old enough will re- member the strawberry vendor of thirty-five or forty years ago. who
 perhaps seemed a nuisance at the time but who, as compared with that now ahiicting US. lis entitled to live as a pleasant memory. We refer to the wo- man who balanced a tray of berry bas- kets on her head and called Straw berrie- e-e-e-e-si'' in a not unmusical voice oi me2zo-soprana pitch. She was
 contemporaneous with the singing
 chimney sweep and the seller of pine
 wood from a type of wagon long since discarded. If there were fewer suicides
 in early strawberry time a generation ago than now, it was not because the
 berries were any different, but because
 the first to come to market were from
 the nearby gardens, because 9 "shill-