Alaska sentinel., 1907-12-19
CHILD SUICIDES.
Not Numerous Here, But in France
 They Are Serious Problem.


 Hugo Loeb, boy of 1G recently committed suicide in New York. A sul- eide like that Is rather startling. Men and women commit suicide, some thou sands of them every year, but that a child-and a boy of Is is a chlld-can be sad enough or bad enough or mad enough to want to die, and to take steps to die, Is disquieting. Yet in one country (France) this has happened frequently enough to cause a member of the Paris bar, NJ. Louis Proal, to write book about 1t. He calls child suicide one of the menaces of France, and gives serious discussion to It's causes and Its prevention. According to the statistics, out of the S,Il6 sui- cides 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 increasing as the total num- per increa sed. In 1894 France had only twenty child suicides, but then there were only 2,752 In all. NJ. Proal points out that these figures do not give all the youthful deaths from suicide be cause not all of them became known.
 America has a better record. While France and parts of Germany and Switzreland 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 preva- lent here. Most of the children who commit suicide In ths country are of foreign birth.
 Suicides are more frequent among city than among country children, NJ. Proal says. City children live under greater strain, they have less chance for healthful play, they are more fla miliarized with acts of violence, and, as a rule, they are under more pressure 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- ous, and nervous child wreck. Disputes among parents are another cause of child suicide, and poverty Is another. But disgust with life In old or young is almost always the sign of a slckly temperament, NJ. Proal says, and If a child has been so unfortunate as to inherit such temperament, the parents should try to make the child healthy, and only good food and exer- else and quiet and plenty of sleep will 10 that.
 "N. Proal's book has message for us," remarked New York woman, who has been an educator for many years. "There are few child suicides in the United States, for ours Is not the Galllc temperament, but there Is plenty of child unhappiness. The un- happiness of child Is tragic, the more 30 because the common deusion is that childhood means happiness. Children can suffer, but they can seldom explain their sufferlngs.
 "A child's sorrow may not last long, but 1t may be bitter while 1t lasts. I think 1t was George Eliot who said that a chllds grief may be worse than a grown persons while 1t endures, be- cause the child has no background of experience, he cannot look back and say: Other troubles have passed, and this will pass
 "Few people comprehend what mis- cry a sensitive child may suffer from quarrel between its parents. The whole foundations Of It's world are shaken; Its whole horizon Is overcast. Few people know how sensitive child