The Kenilworth Advertiser. — 1894-06-16 (Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England)

JOTTINGS.  [The Publisher does not hold himself responsible for, nor identify himself with, the opinions expressed in these Jottings.]  Glancing through the newspapers to see what topics are to the front just now, the first thing that strikes one is the number of suicides. I find two cases of attempted and one of actual suicide repotted in the sane column of one morning journal, and a further search through this and two or three .other papers discloses close upon a dozen similar paragraphs in as many minutes. The causes assigned are : low spirits, unable to obtain work ; depressed, owing to badness of trade ; lost a good situation, and being unable to obtain another one, became depressed ; disheartened, owing to nonsuccess in following employment; the number being made up with one or two love affairs, or adventures bringing the individual in question within the clutches of the law, and cases of " depression " with no particular reason assigned. The persons so affected belonged to various grades of society, from an army officer downwards. In one instance the issue of life or death was so lightly esteemed as to be made the subject matter of a "toss-up."  I cannot help thinking that suicides would not be so numerous as they are if people would only cultivate more of that " grit " and self-reliance which has always been considered the pre-eminent characteristic of Englishmen. The crowding together of the bulk of the population into towns, the exchange of individual industries for the employment of large numbers in big factories, with the consequent uncertainty of work and the unsettling rise and fall of wages together with the increasing fondness for gambling and other forms of speculation and the habit of spending excessive sums on self indulgence in prosperous times —all these seem to have combined, perhaps with other cadges, to sap the spirit of plodding perseverance and destroy the pride which men used to take in their own particular occupation. People seem to have grown dissatisfied with the old-fashioned slow and sure method of progress. They want to earn more and spend more, to make money faster and live in more pretentious style than their forefathers. A short life—if it must be so—but a merry one—according to their notions of merriment—appears to be their motto.  The same feverish restlessness and inability to face misfortune appears ;,o afflict all classes. The rich man, worried by his speculations, cannot endure the thought of " coming down in the world; " the honest tradesman, racked by ceaseless competition, cannot stand against the strain of the bankruptcy court; and the workingman, when some convulsion in commerce throws him out of a situation, can only put his back up against a wall and his hands in his pockets, or join in a vague Socialistic demand for a "living wage" from an indefinite oppressor called" society," which he is taught to saddle with the sole responsibility for his position, instead of putting his shoulder to the wheel, trying if need be, to "turn his hand to something else " and, come what may, always doing his level best to make himself efficient in whatever line of life he happens to be placed.  I don't want to induce any more suicides by sermonising om such subjects, but they seem to me to he the most important on the board just now. While the doctrine of the " survival of the fittest" is being carried out in this remorseless manner in our towns and cities, there comes a very serious outcry indeed from the country districts of land going out of cultivation and tenantless farms falling into decay. In Essex, formerly one of the most extensively cultivated counties in England, over 59,000 acres have ceased during the past 13 years to be crossed by the plough and have either been turned into "permanent pasture" or have gone out of cultivation altogether. Throughout England, it is said that more than 176,000 acres went out of cultivation last year alone. Think of what that means to the labouring population. We go on adding to our foreign possessions, and rightly so, spending immense sums in fertilising foreign wastes. But while we are converting the heathen and cultivating his land for him—or for ourselves—some people think it would be as well if we paid more attention to our own people at home and the condition of our own country, which imaginative writers are picturing as on the high-road towards relapsing into its primitive state of wildbeast-haunted barrenness, save in the immediate neighbourhood of the great towns.  At least, we -might do what we can to encourage home production, both in commerce and agriculture. One would think that this was a patriotic work in which people would be glad to join for their own sakes, and in which the Government would lead the way. But from figures just published, it appears that last year—to take a few different items at random nearly £l,OOO worth of butter was bought from foreigners, salt pork to the value of £13,353, lubricating oil £8,915, boilers £13,840, and chairs £l,OOO, and ail this for the jiritish which English farmers and tradespeople are taxed so heavily to help pay for. In the same way the ordinary consumption of the country is being more and fed by the foreigner. English corn markets which used to be attended by ten or twelve millers every week are now attended by only one or two, and a similar decrease is reporbed in the bakers' purchases of sacks of English as Compared with foreign flour, meat and dairy Produce shewing a like disproportion. It is time the English people bestirred themselves to deal with this state of things, or