Denton Examiner, Audenshaw, Hooley Hill and Dukinfield Advertiser. — 1878-02-16 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

CAUSES. MACIDi MARGIIISITZ OABLN was the same of a young lady in Sheffield who oommitted suicide the other day under circumstemoes of a more than usually painful character. It appears, from the socounts of the and affair which have appeared in print, ttat she was left an orphan when vex./ young, and that she was brought up by grandparents at Hull who, being in • comfortable position in life, were able to give her a good education. Though only fourteen years of age she is described u having all the appearance of a young woman of twenty. In order that she might obtain a situation her grandparents, a short time ago, sent her to the house of a friend at Sheffield; but when the situation was obtained, and on the very day previous to the one she was to have gone into it, the unfortunate girl called at a druggist's shop, purchased a packet of vermin killer, and died from the effect* of the dose of which she partook. The reason alleged for the commission of the crime is that she felt it degrading to go into a situation, from which circumstance it may be inferred that the orphan was delicately nutured before she was taken in charge by her grandparents. It is not stated what sort of a situation was chosen for her, though it was probably that of a nurserymaid. Now, the melancholy suicide ot this young girl, forth, reason assigned, naturally causes us to speculate an to the kind of up-bringing she had under the charge of her grandparents when she regarded it as a degradation to be compelled to go and work for her own livelihood. Had she been allowed to grow up with the idea that she was not to be sent to do anything for herself rntil she was suddenly told that she must go to WA/Ladd and look oat for a situation ?  Perhaps this was tho case, or the poor girl herself, from reading rubbishy novels or otherwise, may have formed precocioue ideas of the degradation of being anything but a young lady who never requires to soil her lingers by furbishing a saucepan. There is some satisfaction in thinking that suicides, originating in a cause of this nature, are remarkably rare. For one who rushee to self-destruction because a situation has been found for her there are hundreds who partake of poison, or cast themselves despairingly into rivers or canals because they are unable to get any woi k to do, and cannot abide the idea of being dependant on the cold charity of the world. To such as these j the prospect of a situation, as presented to Maude Marguerite Orban, would mean deliverance from despair and from an untimely grave.  Suicides are of such common occurrence that they are apt to be regarded with comparative indifference, and yet there is much lin them that calls for serious reflection. If the Registrar-General, in addition to supplying us with the annual hecatomb of the self. immolated, could give an official return of the causes or reasons that had brought about the various suicides, he would confer a boon upon all who like to study and probe the awful mystm lea of life and death. The causes that lead to the perpretration of suicide are manifold, though the great majority may be said to originate in the despondency that settles down into moody and hopeless despair. Shame and remorse, the sorrow that springs from infidelity or desertion, failure in efforts to make an honest livelihood, and the harrowing dread of destitution—these may be classed among the chief of the motive forces which impel so many miserable beings to commit self-destruction. There are some familitie which are hereditary affected by a suicidal mania, and there are also some nations in which this crime has greater prominenoe than in others. French self-murderers figure pretty largely in Thomas Cooper's remarkable poem, "The Purgatory of Suicides," which lepresents, in successive cantos, the spirits of all the eminent suicides of both sexes in ancient and modern times holding high discourse on fate, freewill, and cognate topics in their shadowy land of Hades. Among the miscellaneous writings of Thomas de Quincey there is a well-knows essay, entitled 'Murder Considered as one of the r inc Arts," and it may be said that suicide has attained something of the distinction of a fine art in France. Admiral Villeneuve may be regarded as the true type of the artistic French suicide. When he had lost his fleet by going into action, in disobedience to orders, he resolved on self-destruction in order to mape the disgrace that he knew awaited him, and he set about planning it in a very methodical manner By the study .of some anatomical plates, he found out the exact position of the heart in the body, and he male use of this knowledge to help him in putting :a pin right through his own heart, which caused his immediate death In the silence and scientific precision of Admiral Villeneuve's suicide there was something very striking, though we must confess it has less of a French air about it than the wild leaps into spasm, occasionally indulged in, from the tower of Notre Dams.