Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1911-03-08
TOO MUCH OF ego
BRINGS SUICIDE
SGIfiShnGSS at the Root Of
Self Murder
Washington Post.)

dSuIuS JON GOSI.)
The front page Of the newspaper for
a single day carries its mournful tes-
timony of the stress and strain of life
True to a death pact, a woman waits
only a fe Wmoments after the demise
of her husband to fulfill her written
pledge to kill her son and herself. An
other allowed four years to eIapse,
while her babies are growing to the
age of intelligence, before carrying out
the plan Of self-murder, formulated at
the beginning of her sorrows. A youne
college professor of 80, dreading the
slow encouragements of an incurable
disease, rejects the offer OF useful SER
vice in a prominent university, ana
blows out his brains.
The whole thing is a mess. 1t is alb
normal and unnatural. But then it is
the abnormal, unnatural that attracts
attention. BE good and you will be
happy" said Nine. de Stael, but you
won't have a good time!' BE good,
and you will be lonesome" wrote be-
loved Mark Twain. Happy is the
country whose history is uninteresu-
ing" was the dictum of the sage and
practical Franklin. And thus the
story runs, from the individual to the
mass. Tread the beaten path, bearing
your griefs uncomplainingly, and you
will beoverlooked Rebel and end
them, and for a brief moment the
narrative of your overt act arrests the
eye of the multitude. The one asbo-
lutely unique figure in history was a
Man Of sorrows, acquainted with grief
While He bore the enmity of the
wicked, His was felon's death. And
the picture of a SaVious crucifed be-
tween two thieves has furnished a
dramatic contrast that has appealed
to the art sense of the gifted, even
when the higher meanings of the di-
vine tragedy made no impression.
In tn Golden days the suicide was
buried where tie four roads crossed.
with a stake through mis- body Stew
enson's ST. Ives, fleeing from Edin-
burgh prison, witnessed such an occur
renee, and pondered over it's meaning.
1t meant ignominy in that day, but
the practice was carried on long after
its purport had been lost. 1t began at
a time when the instinct to live was 40
universally implanted in the human
breast that self-destruction could not
be understood. The primitive mind
halted before the phenomenon, and
attributed the extremity to the con-
troll Of a demon. Vampires were real
tiles then, and the stake was to pre-
vent the foul spirit from afterwards
using the body of the afflicted as
habitation
In early Roman history there was no
law against parricide. The deed was
unthinkable, hence no punishment was
ordained. But at the same time the
argued on Immortality.
and Seneca opened his veins in a bath
tub. Suicide is mark of decadence.
The primitive mind looks out; the
mind is introspective
and dwells upon itself. The woman
whose husband died thought too much
OF her husband and her child; but it'll
was because they were hers. The col
Iege professor was excessively en-
with the part that he thought
be was destined to play in human al
fairs. Wherever the ego is uppermose,
suicide is possibility, should things
go wrong. Exaggerated seIfshness Is
at the root of self-murder.