Year: 1877

announced lately by somebody with turn
of mind both ghoul-like and scientific, that
the. present month is the one when the
propensity to suicide is always most preva-


lent. They are full of accounts of misera-


BILE people weary of breath, who have taken


up pistol or Paris green against their sea


of troubles, and so ended them. Men tired


of scolding wives, women jealous of their


husbands, a young girl who could not


"pass" in algebra, young man who lost a


trinket, are among these extraordinarily


unheroic people. The superintendents of


insane asylums, who ought to know some


thing about the matter, announced their
opinion recently that suicides were not


necessarily insane, while by an odd coinci-


dence, on the same day the Supreme Court


of Pennsylvania declared that they were.
We are not all sure that it is wise to


hold any more pour parlerS over these


wretched people. Even Sairey Camp held


that there were some corpses that we


needn't make much of. The suicide is


certainly among them. Let him pass at


once out of sight. 1t can do him no good


in his grave to discuss the cause that


hurried him there; it is point which his


friends would usually gladly cover, and it


certainly does not at all concern the pub


lie. The suicide is usually man who


would be daunted by the certainty of the


prompt oblivion which he pathetcally


Graves in his farewell letters. He always


writes farewell letters. He is not a man


with self-control or quiet Judgment, conse-


quently he has hankering for dramatic


effect and the good effect and good opin-


ion of the world. About one-tenth proba-


bly, of these unfortunate creatures are really


driven to self-slaughter by intolerable suf-
fering which unseats their reason; the


others are driven to impatience by ennui


or disagreeable circumstances. The tempta-
ton is strong to escape to a possible quiet
somewhere, and to a certain temporary


notoriety and compassion. The pulling Of
a trigger, and, prestol one is rid of debts
the nagging wife, the neuralgia, or school
miseries, and becomes the hero of a tragedy
to be wept over and published in all the
morning newspapers. If wo were certain
we were to be shufiled out of sight as
something to be ashamed of, we would stay
alive if only to prove that we were flora
offerings, Grape, and obituaries as much a.


other men.


, AS for the question of the insanity O
| suicides, that is not easily settled. The
Y fact that certain class of people choose tt
t live on is in its favor. Who ever heard O
, a bore blowing out his brains? Or the
e brilliant brother-in-law with two mucl
, genius to earn a dollar? Or the mode
4 woman whose thin nose hunts to cove
. everything that anybody likes? Or the
e man beside you at dinner who is up in pot
y terry? These people will endure, lik,
# prickly-pear trees, to an incredible old age
n although common sense must suggest t
n them at every turn that there are othe
a worlds where they would perhaps b.
d needed and welcomed as blessing and
g boon. If any of our readers, sane or in
Q sane, in this month of roses and sell
r slaughter are in doubt what to do wit
It their mortal coil, our advice is, wear
}. until July. Life is the most uncertain q
d all equations. There is no knowing wha
!. unknown r4-, which is always in it, ma
d turn out. One of the most successful me
n in American history was at twenty-five
n drunken loafer; one of the great reformel
Ie in England, at the same age, resolved t
er bury himself among the savages of une1
es plored Colorado; the Jews of old wer
~ weary of their lives because of the brick
es without straw which were their hard ci
a cumstance. Yet out of those bricks the
he built the pyramids which have stood ft
a ages. June is good month to die in bl
ne it is always the June of another year.
ee Y. Tribune