1906 Jan 21 tSS

1906 Jan 21 tSS Suicidal Mania

## Print Info

* The Sunday Sun
* Sun 21 Jan 1906
* No. 147 Page 4
* THE SUICIDAL MANIA.
* Author: unknown

## Article Text

THE SUICIDAL MANIA.

The papers have lately reported a number of cases of suicide in and about Sydney, and in other parts of the State. It would seem as though the propensity to that sort of thing is governed by very eccentric laws. Those who attempt to explain them on philosophic principles, and on doctrines of averages, seldom succeed In making the relationship of cause and effect any clearer than it was before. Everybody Is aware of what the old Continental notion was as to suicide in England, and among Englishmen. It was supposed to be a natural tendency of the race. The foggy climate in which they were born and reared was sagely pronounced to be responsible for that weariness of life from which Englishmen when their case was diagnosed by their neighbors across the Channel were declared to be chronic sufferers. However, that theory, even If still held water anywhere, would not help in the least with regard to suicide in Sunny New South Wales. If climatic conditions had anything to do with the matter at all suicide should be sufficiently rare in this country. Another theory which is by no means tenable is that most persons who commit suicide are mad in greater or lesser degrees.

\* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \*

That notion perhaps owes its origin to that first revulsion of feeling which took place against the ignominious treatment to which for long generations the bodies of people who laid violent hands upon them selves were subjected. The suicide was burled where four roads met, and a stake driven through his heart. Superstition in Eastern Europe attached a fearful significance to that ceremony. If omitted It was thought that the dead would revisit the glimpses of the moon in the shape of a vampire. The most appalling article of the creed as to the existence of vampires was the dread necessity by which such awful visitants from the grave were deemed to he under of making victims of their own family. Byron in his Glaom 1 has a reference to it:

But first on {illegible} 1

Thy corpse shall from Us tomb be rent,

And ghastly haunt thy native place,

And suck the blood of all thy race.

However, though such supernatural terrors as this have become but recollections of the nightmare dreams of the past, suicide itself is still one of the grimmest facts of a civilized and progressive age.

### Addendum

The Giaour Lines 745

> “But first, on earth as Vampire sent,
>
>

> Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent;
>
>

> Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
>
>

> And suck the blood of all thy race, ”
>
>

https://archive.org/stream/giaourfragmentof00byrouoft/giaourfragmentof00byrouoft\_djvu.txt

## Citations

Article identifier http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article231873669

Page identifier http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page24892096

* APA citation THE SUICIDAL MANIA. (1906, January 21). The Sunday Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1903 - 1910), p. 4. Retrieved March 7, 2019, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article231873669
* MLA citation "THE SUICIDAL MANIA." The Sunday Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1903 - 1910) 21 January 1906: 4. Web. 7 Mar 2019 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article231873669>.
* Harvard/Australian citation 1906 'THE SUICIDAL MANIA.', The Sunday Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1903 - 1910), 21 January, p. 4. , viewed 07 Mar 2019, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article231873669