San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-04-09
NEW REASONS" FOR SUICIDE

| A widened range of motives, TIN
| LIGHT recently observed, is indicated by
the difficulty which present-day police
authorities and investigators are ex
periencing in their efforts to solve crime
mysteries In short, society's activities
and interests cover an increasingly broad
err field, and the individuals range oil
choice among possible courses of action
has been extended.
The condition described, if not also
the theory suggested as a possible ex-
PLANTATION, seems to be at least partly
confirmed by review which New
York newspaper recently made of the
suicides committed during the last year
and the causes assigned for them. The
reasons" for self-destruction ranged
from disappointment in love-which used
to be the most common cause OF self
inflicted death-to the most picayunish
incidents which a normal person might
imagine.
One woman cast herself into eternity
because she had missed two street-cars
'hand running" A sane person might
more easily see" himself taking his own
life because he hadn't missed some of
the slow-going trolley buses which some
communities have to endure.
A man sliced himself into the rough
of the unknown because he had to give
up golf Here, again, one might re-
verse the reason and think himself all
the saner for it.
Still another chose to risk the tenn
perature of the proverbially super-hot
region because he was fed up on the
cold weather that Providence had been
imposing upon his community.
And a girl-the chances are that she
was flapper-killed herself because
life, for her, had exhausted its stock of
thrills. Doubtless she had her own no.
ton as to which would be the less
monotonous of the two places in which
departed souls are supposed to reside.
Times have changed, indeed. Not-so-
many years ago the commonest cause
of suicide was "despondency." That
feeling might be due to i'll health. re-
verses in business, or unrequited love.
Sometimes the guilty, fearing punish
ment or the disgrace of exposure, would
make off with themselves. But those
causes, though not entirely abandoned,
do not seem to be the most frequently
resorted to nowadays Maybe they
merely appear to be losing ground be-
cause less reasonable" causes are so
frequently invoked.
Formerly, cases of self-destruction on
the part of well-to-do persons were few
and far between. The outstretched
hand that clutched revolver or bottle
of poison in vise-like grip was not
likely to bear evidence of recent mani
curing. The shoes might be out at the
soles, tie collar turned wrong-side-out
as concession to the worlds super
fetal definition of responsibility. and the
coat frayed at the edges. But last year,
according TO the review referred to,
seventy-nine millionaires chose death to
the luxurious life they were able to lead. |
Hope and youth are proverbially
synonymous. Yet in the list of those
who destroyed themselves last year ap-.
pear the names of 900 children.
The record contains many surprises,
but none, perhaps, which surpasses the
general one presented by the wide range !
of the reasons assigned for the kind of
act which used to be ascribed to ex-
IRENE sorrow, acute disappointment or
frantic fear.