The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1907-07-30
THE Child Suicides.
FREQUENT IN FRANCE
The Evil Not Very Prev
alent Here According
to the Census.

AIuSO IAOCOg hlilSh 1ililoNAl iASl y NA 4NSN
York.. A suicide like that is rather
startling. Men and women commit
suicide, some thousands of them every
year, but that a child--and a boy of 16
is a child--can be sac enough or bad
enough or mad enough to want to die
and to take steps to detaoinetaoieta
Yet in one country, France, this has
happened frequently enough to cause a
member of the Paris bar, NJ. Proal, to
write book about it. He calls child
suicide one of the menates of France,
and gives serious discussion to its
causes and its prevention. According
to the statistics out of the S,716 suicides
in France in 1902, 50 were of children,
under 16 years of age. In other years
the proportion has been about the
same, the number of child suicides in
creasing as the total number increased.
In 1884 France had only 20 child sui
cides, but then there were only 2,752 in
all. Mr. ProaI points out that these
figures do not give all the youthful
deaths from suicide, because not all Of
them become known.
/ America has better record. While
France and parts of Germany and
Switzerland and Spain have enough
child suicides to give them cause for
worry, the census Of the United States
says that the evil is not very prevail
ent here. Coroner Hamburger of New
York city, told Tribune reporter that
during his experience as coroner not
more than two or three cases of child
suicide had come before him and in
those cases the children were of for
eign birth. "No native born American
child" he said. 1.-THE American tenn
permanent has more balance, perhaps.
Life in this country too, is different
from life in Paris, for example"
But the causes M. Proal names as
among those Of child suicide might
and do exist in this country. The
causes are generally emotional, he says
and jealousy is the chief one. He
points out the evil of favoritism on the
part of parents and guardians:
1.-THE child wishes to be loved as his
brothers and sisters are, because he
has the same right to parental affec-
ton as they have. All injustice,
particularly that which proceeds from
parents, puts him into rebellion, ex-
asperates and discourages him"
Suicides are more frequent among
city than among country children, M,
Proal says. City children live under
greater strain, they have less chance
for healthful play, they are more
familiarized with acts of violence, and
as a rule they are under more pres
sure at school. NJ Proal points out the
wrong and the foolishness Of rigorous
examinations, some of which are
enough to make a healthy child nerv-
GUS and a nervous child a wreck. Dis
putes among parents arc another cause
, of child suicide, and poverty is an
, other. But disgust with life in old or
young Is almost always the sign of a
: sickly temperament, M. Proal says and
II child has been SO unfortunate as
to inherit such a temperament, the
, parents should try to make the. child
) healthy, and only good food and exer-
else and quiet and plenty Of sleep will
: do that.
M Proal's book has a message for
/ as" remarked a New York woman
| fwho has been an educator for many
years. There are few child suicides
/ in the United States, for ours is not
: the Calls temperament, but there is
v plenty of child unhappiness. The un-
A happiness of a child is tragic the more
so because the common delusion is
4 that childhood means happiness Chill
( dren can suffer, but they can seldom
e explain their suffering. They are so
r inarticulate as stephen Crane pointed
e out in one of his short stories. about a
= small boy who was silently Shd help
: lessly writing under some injustice
on the part of parents or teachers.
/. "a child's sorrow may not last long
s but 1t may be bitter while it lasts.
i think it was George Eliot who said
: that a child's grief may be worse than
= grown persons while it endures be-
4 cause the child has no background OF
e experience, he cannot look back and
Q say: Other troubles have passed and
this will pass
Few persons comprehend what
misery a sensitive child may suffer
from a quarrel between its parents
e The whole foundations of its world are
shaken; its whole horizon is overcast
u Few persons know how sensitive
: child may brood over the conviction
= that it is plain and homely, or stupid
II I can never forgive my mother sait
y a clever woman to me once, for telling
n me, when l was a child, that I was
n unattractive. She did It for my good
p but, oh! how it hurt me, how I shranl
II and hid from people, believing l was
2 ugly
c II can remember how I, as child
d suffered over the money troubles of my
q parents. / was too ignorant to know
n that frequently they worried withou
reason, and l used to lie in bed ant
IF wonder what we could do when thu
o house was sold over our heads as
70 heard my father say it would be. 1
never was, by the way.
r Have you ever seen the faces of tn
ID children who work in the factories o
s. the South? Have you ever seen tn
al old, old look of some small boy who's
lie mother has been left with no money
l. only children, and who feels himsel
as the man of the family. Yes, childrel
$ can suffer not enough in this countr
Id to commit suicide, perhaps but thel
It. capabilities for pain are large enough
is Let us be tender with them. "-Nel
York Tribune,