The Washington herald., 1908-06-14
AFRAID OF LIFE.
BY THE oPTIMIsT.

Sociologists and humanitarians are
seriously exercised over the vast and de-
plorable increase recently in the number
of suicides There have been so many
cases of felo de Sc already this year
that the record bids fair to be broken.
and although no one, possibly. can sug-
gest feasible plan for stopping this self
slaughter. something might be suggested
to check the tendency.
Some OF the recent suicides have been
attributed TO the business depression. and
this only serves TO point out the amount
of misery and suffering that any, even 4
slight, attack on our material welfare
can produce. But it would seem that the
cause lies far deeper than this. for
terrible indication OF the spread OF the
suicidal tendency is 10 be found in the
Increasing number Of children who take
their own lives.
There was. for instance. boy In New
Jersey who shot himself because he could
not skate; another boy in Chicago shot
himself because he had no candy to give
to his sweetheart; a boy IN Pennsylvania
hanged himself because his School-teacher
reprimanded him. and a child in Ohio
killed itself because a companion had set
the example
The Chicago bureau OF statistics has
kept an account Of suicides. and it finds
that suicide OF persons between the ages
OF ten and nineteen has increased nearly
10 per cent between the years 1900 and
| 1907. This is horrible
Youth cbotrlR ~ fro 49,
freedom from worry; life is all before a
lad at that age. and that one should end
II oil before life has fairly begun seems
inexpiicable. Massinger says:
He
That kills himself TO avoid misery. fears il
And at tho best shows but bastard 1lOr."
But it cannot be through fear OF what
is to come with the years that these
youngsters challenge fate so dreadfully.
The true explanation probably lies close
10 the statement OF those in charge Of
the Anti-Suicide League Of New York.
/ who attribute this increase in suicide TO
/ the high tension a. which life is lived in
! America these days. We live so fast:
the hustle and the haste is so furious and
| has been for so long that It is small
wonder that the children Of this genera
tion inherit temperaments so nervous that
they are impatient of control, strain at
the leash. and seek in throwing off the
| shackles of life 20 discard responsibility.
In the old days OF savagery, when a
! person committed suicide the poor corpse
was disgraced. and brutal though this
was-one method was 10 drive a stake
J through the body and leave it exposed
/ Il was perhaps not so great an error as
surrounding self-Slaughter with the, r0-
mantle glamour with wlt;h It is associ-
ated in some minds.
One doctrine should be preached inces-
sanity. that the man who will not steel
! himself to-
80 suffer
! The s!ings and arrows Of outrageous fortune
is first. last. and all the time a coward
II he stands quite alone in the world
and fancies that his death concerns no
body but himself. still is he a coward
for he IS setting forth a towards i'm
pulses unto the world. II he has those
dependent on him, then is he brute and
criminal as well as coward, and the name
he has left behind him should be exc
Grated and held in all dishonor.