Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, September 15, 1895, Page 22

3 ¥ contrary, a referen: Otiminality and Philosophy of the Act of Belf-Destruction, HISTORIC WAVES OF VOLUNTARY DEATH Various Pliases of the Subject Con- Sldercd mnd Analyzed—Abortive and Barbarous Laws—Judge Not Too Hurw o Btatistics prove that suicides occur with as | much regularity as marriages, births and deaths. The thoroughness with which self- destruction has been studied during the past fifty years may be known by the information we now possess of the minutest details of the acdt. It would seem that no other social phenomenon exhibits a more regular group of constants, N For the past five years sulcide has been fncreasing: at an alarming rate in all eivilized portions of the globe—a veritable epldemic of self-killing seems to have overtaken the race. One of the results of this widespread wave of voluntary death has been to awaken general interest in the philosophy of the act, which, in turn, has produced two classes of ‘'writers on the subject, one apologizing | and the other anathematizing. The first de- fend suicide generically on the ground that gince it may be heoric or pardonable in some cases [t cannot be wrong in any; the second condemn it as broadly for the reason that i it {8 wrong in one case It cannot be right | in any. Without any attempt at paradox, it | might truthfully be said both are equally | right and equaily wrong. The question con- cerns an act that, though simple in itself, is | of too relative a nature to admit of any direct | swer based on some generalization of the same. To ascribe definite Intrinsic qualities to any particular part of so complex a subject, without a due regard to all deter- mining factors, is equally fallacious. Ob- viously, before properties can be predicated of parts a knowledge of the whole itself is pre- requisite. For this purpose it will prove instructive to Interrogate the past as well as the present. About 300 B. C., Zeno is said to have formulated a system of philosophy known as Stoiclsm. This remarkable school, while re- flecting much of the austerity of the Cynics, included most that was grand and beautiful in the religion of the Jews and Phoenicians, and all that was dignified and noble in the teachings of Socrates and Plato. Many of the wisest and most intellectual men of Asia, Greece and Rome, for a period of at least five centuries, were-Stoles, a sect that idealized duty, justice and every civil and domestic virtue. Never before had so perfect a code of ethics, £0 rich in sublime sentiments and lofty maxims, existed. The thoughtful and the just, from and before the time of Marcus Aurelius to the present, have venerated the profound wisdom of its laws and admired the even-handed Jjustice f{t inculcated. Stolelsm formed the basis of the Justinian code from which modern jurisprudence re- ceived most of its equity. Contemporaneous with this sect flourished the pleasure and pain eriterlon school founded by Eplcurus. It taught a purely materialistic and strictly prudential philosophy, that was at variance with the precepts of Zeno in almost every essential particular except the right of any person to voluntarily end his lite, Ig this the Cynics and Platonists also agreed with them. Nelther of these four great schools considered suicide either a moral offense or a crime in ltself. “The power to die,” they argued, “disproved the right to grieve.” Many fllustrious names might be cited of men who were adherents of one of these four schools of philosophy, Diogenes, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Lucretius, Cicero, Cato, Atticus, Pliny the Younger, Horace, Otho, Seneca, Epictetus, Antoninus and others. The attitude of the Cynics respecting self-destruction was indi- cated by Diogenes when he upbraided a youth for continuing to suffer pain, so many ave- nues of escape being open to him; Plato, that of his school when he wrote the immortal Phaedo; Cleero, that of the Stoics when he said, “When the Delty awakens in us a just desire of death, the true and the wise man will pass with pleasure from these shades to celestial brightness;” Lucretius, that of the Bpicureans when he commanded him who had his fill of living to “Rise up, then, like a sated guest, And enter, fool, upon thy dreamless rest.”” Suicide Is not the product of any particular sect, nor yet of any clime or age. To destroy one's self seems to have been a personal pre- Togative exercised by the great, the good and the wise, as well as by the wretched, tho vile and the foolish, since the dawn of history. Ahitophel, Abimelech, Saul and Zimri are examples amoug the early Jews. Homer, Kodrus, Lucretia, Themistocles, Empedocle Socrates, Curtius, Dlogenes, Demosthene: Cleanthes, the Decil, Zeno, Hannibal, Reg lus, Terence, Mithridates,” Aristarchus, Lu cretius, Razls, Cato, Portia, Brutus, O sius, Atticus, Otho, Seneca, Nero and others - are familiar ‘to all who have read the story of ancient fortitude and despair. In the commonly accepted meaning of the word, sui- cide includes that countless army who offered themselves as a sacrifice on the eltar of nation or creed; all those chivalric souls who, in a less dis- tingulshed but equally exalted manner, ylelded their lives in d:fense of honor or the discharge of duty. It also inc'udes those who in the midoight of thelr sorrows or despair could see no guding star nor hear one word of hope; those who in the tempest of acve sity could find no place of shelter; all who in the unutterable anguish of a soul con:ul slon sought rcfuge in the bosom of mother earth. It lkewise inc'udes those who couli not bear to have thelr passions, ambition or pride thwaited or punished. Are all thes: of one class, and therefcre equaily repreainsi- ble? That is the qies!ion, In spite of a host of sectirians and ultra- moralists, it s refreshing to kncw that in the past, as well as in the pres:nt, men and women have lived who were good enoigh id brave enough to attempt the rescue of ir- onsibl: and altruistic suicides from (he 'n- discriminate condemnaticn of self-murder. Jean Duvergler de Hauranne, bater known as the Abbe of St. Cyrim, w:s among the first to break the long silence that had char- acterized the discussion of this subject since the sixth century of our era. In his work, *Casus Regius,” published at the close of the sixteanth century, he enumerated thir.y-four distinet kinds of justifiable suicide. Follow- ing him came Dr. John Donne, dan of St. Paul's, Lonfon, who in his “Biathanatos,” published in 1644, dec'ared thet s If-5o niclde Is not so niturally a sia as not to be other- wise." Writers of his time agree that he “was perfect in civil and canon laws.” Then came Grotius, Locke, Addison, Robeck, Montesquien, Gibbon, Vo 'talre, Rouss-au, Hume, Puft ndorf, Madame de Stael, Thomas Mcore, and many latter-day writers. Wiliam Paley, one of England's most eminent theologians, writing in the c'osing years of the last cenfury, ad- mitted that while one m'ght ame'iorate his condition in a future st:te by remain'ng alive, that such a contingency was no prcof of the criminality of suicide. That his opinon was shared by other divines might be infe'red from th® number of clergymen who hsve voluntarily destroyed thems:lves. Certan it I8 that nothing is said in c:ndemnation of ths act n any of the anclent gr.at religions and philosophies—Zarathustra, Pythagoras, Cor s- tlans since the Council of Arles, A. D., 452 and Mohammed excepted. Neither the Old nor New Testament, from which most civilized Dations are supposed to have derived their articles of faith and rules of behavior, any- where indicate that the Everlasting ever ““fixed his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter.”” On to the scriptures wli show that Samson and Razis were compli- m:nud rather than reproved for kiling them- selv JIf A kills B it 1s homicide; If it was the result of an accident it is excusable homicide; Af it was done in self-defense it is justifiable homicide. Felonlous homicide requires that kho slayer should have been of the age of ‘discretion, of sound mind and actuated by some unlawful purpose—it is then man- #‘“"’ if malice appears it is murder in second degree; if, in addition to all this, ,!n-.dlu_llnn can be shown, it is murder in ) first degree. Thus criminal law recog- nizes, and very justly, too, possible degre “of guilt In the act of homicide and appo tions its penalties accordingly. But when the slayer happens to be his own victim it 1s self-murder—no degrees of culpability seem tolerable to a very large class of other- Wwise good people. It would be difcult to A rational explanation, or apology even, this rigid soclal, and usually sectarian, A g RO 9 0 ¥ D | Dewey & o T= BEE: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, Stone F 1115.1117 Farnarn St. s UM A A ” rrey 1895 urniture Go. ber Sale. 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PrIGES Guuranieed for This Morln Only e e —— e — T (151 $1.75 Table81.00 82.50 Table 1.45 $3.50 Table 2.00 $5.00 Table 3 15 $7.50 Table £ 285 g810.00 Table .25 $15.00 Table8.5¢) e 7 Parlor Tables. Draperies and Curtains attitud in his Crown,” and he is supported by Blackstone, “Felo de se, or suicide, is where a man of age and discretion and compos mentis volun- tarily kills himseif.” The elements consti- tuting criminality (n the eves of the law and common to both homicide and suicide, are that the person committing either must be of the age of discretion, of sound mind and act of his own free wili. Clearly, then, no jurist ought to regard every case of self- destruction as Invariably felonious. And yet in England and In the state of New York suicide is always regarded as mur- der, while the attempt to commit is punished as a misdemeanor. This singular species of alleged fus- tice concerns Itself but little in the intention, but rather in the success of the act. Such & law 1s anachronistic; it belongs to the time of the Emperor Adrian, or Louis IX.; It is a disgrace to modern civilization. An impartial review of the history of sui- cide seems to justify a classification that shall recognize at least a few of the major qualifications that criminal law has granted homicide. Whatever is just between two or more individuals ought not to be unjust to either singly. All suicides naturally group themselves under one of the following three classes: First, irresponsibles: All children, idiots and imbeciles who kill themselves from any cause whatever; adults who voluntarily kill themselves being known or demonstrably victims of some hereditary taint of mind or body, or subjects of some form of acquired mental ‘unsoundness having a suicidal tend- ency, such as epilepsy, alcoholism, narcotism and insanity in all its manifestations, from ungovernable emotions to mania, without re- gard to the mental or physical state, occupa- tion or disease that may have caused or awakened the same. This embraces all who are legally disqualified for the commission of any felony. Second,"excusables: All adults who volun- tarlly kill themselves or passively submit to a violent death, influenced by some particular religious belief or philosophical principle, in behalf of country, duty or innocence. This Includes all our heroic dead who died in the discharge of active goodness—every soldier, every martyr, and every individual sacrifice. Third, culpables: Adults not impelled by conditions operative in the first class, nor actuated by motives governing the second class, who deliberately destroy themselves ror the purpose of avolding any legitimate claim of society upon them—reasons not sufficlent to cause the vast majority of their soclal rank to suicide, being subjected to similar condi- tions. In'this anti-social class only can the true self-murderer be found. Volumes might be filled simply with clta- tions illustrative of the foregolng classes. The boy who killed himself because his favorite canary had died, and the one who did likewise in order to spite his parents, are examples of irresponsible child suieide. Voltaire's case of a gentleman of mature age, good morals, free from emotional disturb- ance, and in comfortable circum- stances financlally, who killed himself at the same age his father an1 his brother did before him, Is a type of tran mittsd suicdal impulse. It 1s confirmed by one of Fa'ret's five classic cases, where a me'ancholic father lost four out of his five sons by su cide; the eldest killed himself at the age of 40, by leaping out of a Window; the recond at 35, strangled himself; the third threw himself out of @ window and the fourth shot himself. Casauviele collected twenly-two cases of hereditary sulcide occuring during the twenty-nine years preceding 1893, and Zimmerman avers of a certain Swiss village ' that mot a sinzle family there but had lost some mem- ber by voluntary death. Instances of suici’| following ah alcoholic debauch, or narcotic Q'ssipation, are all too common, Alienis's admit the existence of suicidal impulse In a number of allments, such as impulsive | sanity, melancholia, the insanily of critical vital periods, hallucinetions, delusions asd the sequelae of certain local and somatic diseases. Al of these are known te be ac- centuated by herelity, restraint, sympathy snd the Instinct of imitation. To realize the scope and power of these etiologic factors, a few of the most potent might be mentioned: Im- pulsive insanity s common in the hereditarily nervo.s when tubject d to ku moral suftr- ing, mental or physical fatigue, sexual and aleoholic intemperanc?, and female during mensirual per nd ord of maternity. The d spo:ition to self-destruction 1s present in four out of every five victims of melancholia. This state of mind s frequently due to hereditary, neurasthenia, mental and payr work, fauity education, con-an marriages, immoral practices, political, so- clal and religious excitement, especially when there subjects are clergymen, artists, phy- siclans, journalists, actors, politicians, gamblers, ‘speculators and a large class of supersensitives not of these occupations. Pmmumm-uudmhnm_l may be mentioned chronic diseases of the stomach and intestines, tumors in the abdo- men, sexual disorders, liver discases, Bright's disease, dlabetes, heart disease, motably en- largement, respiratory affections that inter- fere with the proper oxygenation of the blood, such as asthma and bronchitls; coarse brain lesions such as tumors and degenera- tions; maiming for life through loss of limb, speclal sense, or disfiguring scars; any de- bilitating condition of the system as chlorosis, anemia, improper and insufficient food, dis- eases of the bones and skin, cancer, tuber- culosis, syphilis, spinal disease, goitre, rheu- matism, erysipelas, chronic ulcers, exhaustive discharges after an attack of epidemic in- fluenza or la grippe, and the ennui of isolated or persons retired from active business. Con- splcuous among the ailments having suicidal impulses developed during critical periods is puerpural insanity when it appears in women who marry late in life, take chloroform dur- ing_confinement, suffer from convulsions, pyemlia, diseases of the breasts, or those subjected to prolonged lactation or rapidly recurring pregnancies; victims of grief, worry, seduction, desertion, death of hus: band or loss of child; lactational insanity in the overworked, destitute, or those weak from any other cause, gestational insanity which appears about the third or sixth month of gestation; climacteric Insanity where hereditary | nervousness exists, In women _ between the ages of 40 and 50, and in men between the ages of 65 and 65. The melancholic forms . of perlodical insanity due to cranial injuries, heredity, inebriety, moral obliquity,”critical periods, ‘etc., delusional insanity, especially of the persecutory or religious form, where marked hereditary tendencies or acquired ec- centricities exist as inordinate pride, sus- plcion, erotism and hallucinations arising from certain fixed ideas accepted without rea- son and which ultimately become Imperative conceptions or fixed delusions; severe emo- tlonal strains, profound mental abstraction, alcoholic and sexual Indiscretions. -Hysterical insanity at the critical periods, especially in those who are hereditarily predisposed, when subjected to the depressing effects of fear, anxiety, jealously, remorse, mental and bod ly overwork, diseases of the reproductive sys- tem, and’the remarkable contagion of imita- tion. Post-connubial Insanity due to mental excitement and marital excess. Rheumatic insanity, in the melancholic, debauched and frail, especially when the fever ran high and heart complications existed. Should any think the foregoing a needless multiplication of causes, I would suggest that the “official list” has not nearly been exhausted. That they are pertinent is proven by the autopsies of 1,333 bodies of suicides: The brain, its membranes or the cranium were found diseased or abnormal in 870, disease of the lungs In 100, disease of the stomach and intestines in 150, disease of the liver in 80, suppressed natural secretions in 15, disease of the heart 10, venereal disease in 8, no appar- ent structural change in 100. Should any think lightly of the power of imitation, sym- pathy, compassion or whatever it may be that makes possible immense waves of psychic contaglons, let him glance over the history of such epidemics. Tarquin I, during a pacific interval, ordered his soldiers to build sewers; they Killed themselves rather than submit to what they regarded as beneath the dignity of a warrior. The maidens of Miletus, impa- tient of their lovers' return from the wars, began to kill themselves at a most alarming rate. A similar epidemic prevailed among the women of ancient Marseilles, where sub- sequently under the rule of the Council of the Six Hundred any one was permitted to suicide who could give a good reason for not remaining alive—and for that purpose polson was provided at the expense of the state. The women of Lyons and Paris, at a much later perlod, also were seized with an epldemic of sulcide. At Malta, when that Island was firs seized by the British, a mainia of self-killing burst forth among its Inhabitants. In anclent times it was not rare for the citizens to kill themselves just before their city surrendered to the enemy. When Philip of Macedon pur- sued the fair Theoxena she attempted to es- cape by the sea; the ship in which she had en passage being overtaken, she instituted a sudden mania of self-destruction among the crew and then threw herself into the sea. The virgins of Macedonia threw themselves into wells rather than submit to the dishon- orable proposals of a licentious Roman gov- ernor. In the stormy days of 1793 an epi- emic of sulcide broke out at Versailles—1,300 perished by thelr own hands before it ceased In 1808 an outbreak occurred at Rouen, and Stuttgart suffered one flye years later. In 1845 It became necessary to close the wells at the Bicetre at Paris, on account of a mania that had spread among its aged Inmates to hurl themselves into them.” In July, 1850, the New York insane asylum was afflicted with an ep'dem’e of sui cidal mania among its patients. In 1865 a patient in Hotel des Invalides, Parls, hanged himself on a certain cross-bar in oné of the wards; within two weeks five athers had strangled themselves in the same man- There is not the slightest reason to that the Impulse to suicide is in- fectious. In this regard it agrees with other psycho-n=uroses which rwere, and still can be, propagated on the wings of thought as surely s can incubative diseases by means of bacilli. In proof of this it is only neces- sary to call to mind the Flagellants that flourished in Europe foF over 300 years, to which even Henry 111 ¥ubeumbed, and which neither papal bulls, exeommunications nor death at the stake could stop. The Dancing Mania in central Europe, Tarentism in south- ern Italy, Tigretlerism In Abyssinia, the Convulsionaires of St. Medard in France, the Jumpers of the Shetland Islands, the Leapng Ague in Scotland, strange convulsive disord rs that have closed factories and schools, 0:r own Jumpers, Barkers, Shakers, and others as yet nameless, but present at many ‘‘re- vivals and camp meetings"—all these are spread by psychic contigion and are familiar to everybody. In this connection it fs proper to briefly notice a modern exaccerbation of an old sen- sation initiated about a century ago by Mes- mer, and against which the ed'cts of the church was as impoteat as when they were directed against Flagellantism—I allude to hypnotism. Of late the itinerant hypnotist has become common. One who is determined to give a good “‘show’ need not fear disap- pointment, if he will take the precaution to employ a suitable “subject.”” I am not sure that any training schools for “subjects” ex- ist in this country, but they are common enough in England, and in London no one need want for a finished product that cin “do” cetelepsy, the stone-breaking act, mind reading, etc. Apart from all fraud and trick- ery, however, hypnotism is a fact, and some wonderful experiments have been reported that are undoubtedly genuine. In the great majority of cases no Injury seems to re- sult in the subject, although in Hungary recently a death is reported from this cause due to psychic shock, according to Kafft- Ebing. It would not be safe to say then that artificial hallucinations and delusions frequently induced in any one subject, or but once in a mind peculiarly susceptive by reason of Inberited trend or acquired in- stability, might not pass beyond the stage of passive compliance into one of actual loss of will power or real mental aberration. Many subtile emotlons in a large number of otherwise healthy people seem to hang on the very boundary of sanity, only walting, as it were, an invitation to drop Into the maelstrom of insanity. Such grave acts as homifcide and suicide, committed simply on account of sympathy or the instinct of imita- tion, are explicable upon no other theory. In France it is not uncommon at present for criminal lawyers to set up in defense of the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes the possible existence of an irresponsible post- ner. doubt hypnotle state, thus adding another harle- quin of defense to post-epileptic state of mind, masked epilepsy, and transitory mania. History is filled with instances of suicides belonging to the second class. They, more than argument or plea, ought to establish the fact that not every case of self-destruction is necessarily criminal. What heart does not swell with emotion whgn the many heroic acts of self-sacrifice aré contemplated? Do they not display the very Acme of Homerle herolsm, the truest and ‘Ereatest glory of the rece? Away back in the mérning of civiliza- tion a war raged betweti“thé Dorians and the Athenians. The oracle &t Delphi was favor- able to the Dorians upon‘condition that the body of the Athenlan King be not harmed. Kodrus, learning this, df§gwised himself as a menlal, provoked a qudFreF with the enemy and was killed. This having come to the kncwledge of the Dorian' commanders, they withdrew their forces Ii' dismay and Athens was saved. King Kodrus thereby became the genius of all who siriee” that day have voluntarily laid themsel¥s upon the altar of thelr country. How liké s many successive reincarcerations has tlils 'quality of martial greatness burst forth in Meroekeus of Theb the daughters of Erechifhéui of Athens, Cur- tus, the Decll, and Caésar of Rome, Winkel- ried of Melchthal, and'thousands of others in as many a national orisls, When Tarquin outraged Lucretla she redeemed her ‘“incom- parable purity’ with a polnlard. The bloody instrument of her untimely taking off, dis- played in the senate, started a revolutjon that ended in the birth of @ republic. Let us hope that the sulcides of Christian women in Armenia will have a similar result. Pre- meditated self-slaughter can go no farther in point of deliberateness than it did in Leonidas and his 800 Spartans, ‘‘combing their yellow bair for death on the sea shore’ there at Thermopylae. Did It not appear again In the famous 800 under Judas Maccabeus at bloody Bethzetho; in the vallant Spanish infantry at Rocroy; iIn the thousands Who never left th field in the two great battles at Lutzen; in the gallant charge at Balaklava; In the three German cavalry regimeats at Gravelotte? Whatever might be said against the political conduct of Themistoc'es, he forever disproved the charge of treason when he took poison rather than lead a Persian army against his native land. Rather than break a spoken promise Regulus returned to Carthage and certain death. It was the same regard for his word of honor that made the great Ney, while et a lad, the hero of the Commune. Socrates enfranchised philosophy when he drained the fatal cup raher than cast the slightest re- flection upon a sentence passed by the sover- eign tribunal of Athens, though he might easily have escaped through the open door of his prison, or acquitted himself in the Areopagus by delivering a speech prepared for him by Plato. I have no desire to ap- pear irreverent, but was not the great sacri- fice on Calvary the sane, voluntary act of One who said, ““Greater love hath no man than this, that he will lay down his life for his friends.” In evidence of the power of that transcendent example, how many since that solemn hour have given testimony under every form of persecution, martyrdom and in- quisition! When Nicholas Ridiey and Hugh Latimer permitted their friends to fasten bags of powder to their persons in order to shorten the agony at the stake did they thereby lessen the magnanimity of - their death, or dim the halo of sainthood? Not alone on fleld of battle, in vindication of houor, in the enthusiasm of religious zeal, or on account of some philosophical conviction have men and women grandly offered up their lives. The place is still shown on the Central Pacific rail- way where Bret Harte's “Flynn of Virginia” died that his married friend might be saved to his family. Jim Bludso was not a moral man, but he perished at his post of duty, down among the. engines of the Prairle Belle he stayed until the boat touched shore and the passengers could land. Colonel John Hay struck a responsive thril! in every sympa- thetic heart when he said of Jim, . . . Christ s not going to be too hard On a man that died for men.” Whenever and wheresoever, on land or water, in the open plains or crowded clty, awful situations may occur, the warm, he- roic heart has always been present, and al- ways will be ready to respond even at the certain loss of its own life. Yet these deeds, the saddest and proudest in history, being voluntary acts of self-destruction, are sui- cides. Who will dare to say that they com- mitted any crime against society, the indi- vidual or’ the All-Compassionate’ by dying as they did? Common sense and common conscience shudders at the unutterable mean- ness of such a thought. No altruistic sui- cide is ever murder, or even criminal. The third class remains to be considered. Broadly speaking, it includes all that are not irresponsibles or excusables. If the vie- tim is known to have been criminal, vicious or intensely egotistic, no doubt can exist as to the culpability of his act. Ahitophel, find- ing that his military plans were ignored by Absalom, went home, made his will and hung himself. ' Abimelech, dangerously wounded by a woman belonging to the enemy, rather than suffer capture and perhaps an igno- minious death, ordered his sword bearer to run him through. Saul, deeply chagrined at his defeat, fell upon his sword. Zimri, king of Israel for a few days, being deposed, burned himself to death in the king's palace. Homer, because he was unable to eolve a riddle propounded to him by a fisherman, hanged himsclf. The great Afax, piqued af not succeeding 10 the arms of Achiiles, killed himself with his sword, Dido, rather than marry one she did not love, stabbed herself. Empedocles In orde. to demonstrate his divine nature, is sald to have leaped Into the crater of Etna, De- mosthenes, ratber than become a prisoner of state, took poison which he had concea’ed in his pen. Calanus, a Brahmin, heing sick with a colic, ordered himself cremated alive in the presénce of Alexander th: Great, on the frontiers of Susiana. Diogenes, attacked with a fever on his way to the Olymple games, strangled himself. Zeno, having broken or dislocated a finger, looked upon the accldent as a ‘“call” and straightway hung himself, Cleanthes afficted with & disease of the gums, possibly scurvy, was ad- vised to fast & few days; he became better and continued to fast till he-died. Terence, having lost his collection of translated com- edles, drowned himself. Mithridates the Great, aften a defeat in battle, slew himselr. For the same reason Brutus' fell upon hie sword, Cassius ordered his freemea to de- capitate him, and after spa night reading P stabbed Lim- seif. Petronfus, a Roman voluptuary and fol- lower of the court of Nero, having incurred the displeasure of his master, bled himself a little every day until he died. Labienus, having lost his writings by fire, destroyed himselt by fire. Macer hanged, and Cassius Licinius stranged himself rather than meet Cicero in debate. Portia, “Cato's daughter,” impatient of her lord's return, swallowed fire. Mark Antony and Cleopatra, on account of a liason, killed themselves, as have many a Romeo and Juliet siuge, The usurper Otho, findirig it dificult to defend his stolen throne, stahbed himself. Seneca, under sen- tence of death by Nero, bled himself to death. Nero, having baen declared the enemy of his country, cut his throat. Nerva, the famous Roman lawyer, suicided out of compassion for Catullus the wretched state of the republic. suffocated himself with the fumes of burning charcoal rather than be taken prisoner. Han- nihal, hating everything Roman, rather than be captured by his hereditary fce, took poi- son. Many of the foregoing instances are as inane and extravagant as the esthetic Harl- Kirl of the Japanese, or the old-fashioned Chinese method of Insulting an enemy by sui- ciding at his door. There seems to be no limit to the trivial character of circum- stances considered by some pople as sufficlent reason for ceasing to live. An Englishman shot himself because he was tired of always buttoning and unbuttoning his clothes; an- other, because life had nothing better to offer him than eating, sleeping and hunting. A lady hung herseif because girlish plays no longer amused her. A Polish youth Kkilled himself out of sheer curiosity. It requires no special acumen to assign all these cases thelr proper place in onr classification. It is the duty of society to properly edu- cate all its members and afford them all nec- cssary civil protection, In return for this it has an ethioal claim upon every healthy, sane male adult, at least, to obey its estabiished laws, rules and regulations; it has a fur- ther economic claim, that with his 20th year he shall begin a productive period that shall continue for fifty years with the labor of five years capable of sup- porting him for eight years. That such an ideal reciprocal obligation exists between present soclety and every component member is mathematically demonstrable. Whether a large class of moral delinquents ever can or will perform these unwritten but imperative dutles is not so self-evident. Many serve a commonwealth only along lines suggested by the laws of natural selectfon and survival of the fittest. Criminals are {mprisoned or executed; the vicious and insane are confined; the dissipating, quarrelsome and impetuous often come to a violent end; profligate women are often sterile; dissolute men rarely marry; the debilitated,” degenerated and deformed furnish food for pestilence. Indeed, from a utilitarian point of view, an epidemic of self- destruction among such cannot be other than a public blessing. Soclety is nften responsi- ble, however, for this deteriorated product, and ore of the results of our present faulty system of education alone is painfully ob- vious in a class of irresponsible suicides, who, with advancing years, naturally enter our culpable class—I allude to suicide among children. seemed to know nothing of child-suicide. In tho ten years preceding 1797 one case ap- peared In Berlin; in the decade following three became known. Thirty-one cases oc- curred between 1812 and 1831. During the eight years preceding 1891, 289 school chil- dren destroyed themselves {n Germany. alone; eighty through fear of punishment, twenty- six had some form of mental disease, nine- teen were morbidly ambitious, sixteen feared examination. The present rate of child- suicide In Europe is 2,000 per annum. What an indictment against modern methods of in- struction! Fifty years ago ‘over-pressure’ unknown, ‘'Who are the winners of medals? I submit that they are generally those who should have been restrained rather than stimulated. Who does pot realize that often In galning honor treasure is lost that all the gold on earth cannot restore. How many valedictorians and first prize winners have made themselves felt in the useful oc- cupations? The ability to shine at examina- tlons and commencements rarely extends into ability to do In the serious business of real life, hence the world is full of educated nondescripts. Cramming succeeds only in the precocious, and precocity always indicates biglogic degeneration. Our educational meth- ods and soclal fashions are much to blame for the existence of men and women radically unfit and unable to meet the requirements of present civilization; they, rather than the automatic creatures of their own construc tion, should be condemned. The proper aim of education should be the making of good citizens. Mere intellectual acquirement does not_accomplish it; knowledga alone Is not wisdom; the heart must be educated and dis- ciplined as well as the brain. He who in the glory of his intellectual supremacy neglects or repudiates any debt he may owe society, carries with him the seul of a poltroon. If you refuse to relleve the ache of penury, to assuage the pangs of suffering or to lighten the clouds of error, If you with haughty mien pass by the broken-hearted and grief- stricken, whoever they may be, you are a soclal assassin, I care not by what other name you may be known among men. He who is not his brother's keeper s his de- stroyer. It becomes no one, therefore, to judge the social pariahs of our day too harshly; they are but t0o often monstrosities of our own begetting, Who knows what they may have endured or how able they were to withstand trial and temptation. In the language of Burton, “God alone can tell; His mercy may come between the bridge and A hundred vears ago statisticians | brook, the knife and be thine. We ought the throat. how he was tempted? Who knows It is his case, it may Nt to be too rash and rIgorous in our censures, as sume are, charity will Judge and hope for the best. J LEONARD, M. D. —— i NO L AL INFORMATION, bl A Lawyer Whowe Ovinfous Hud a Cash Value. Detrolt Free Press: “Can you spare me about twenty minu time?"" he asked, as of a lawyer's office in 2 o'clock the other af Bt anything connected tes of your valuable he appeared In the door 1 the Moffat building at ternoon, with law queried the man at the desk, as he turned around, “Kinder distantly connected, I think. Thar's a fellar out my way who says the sun moves around the airth.” “Well!" “Wall, T know better. The airth moves around the sun, of course. We got into a dispute about ‘it the other night and he called me a liar."” Well!" “Wall, I also calle d him a liar and told him I'd put a head on him." “And you wish my you?" asked the law “I want your opinion Mebbe I'm all wrong move around the airf “Do you want my yer?” Not yit awhile, as a man fustly.” T st But, look-a-here!’ “you must hev some sun 0, sir—no idea “But you ain't fool the airth stands still “I've nothing to do hain’t, eh! have no opinion to offer. services in the case, do vyer, on about it. th?" legal opinion as a law- the matter, Does the sun Jest gimme yer opinion Good day, ' protested the caller, sort o' idea about the I'm very busy." enough to believe that 20 with the earth, sir!" Hain't you livin’ on the “I know nothing about it!" “Can't you see the sun?" “If you want my opinion as a lawyer you must pay for it. The sun 1 y move around the earth, or the earth may move around the sun, or both of then you want the mattes hold of it and give for $10." m may stand still. It r looked up I'll take you legal information “Wall, T don't want ft—not fur $10," re- plied the caller, as he made ready to go. “No, sir! T wouldn't pay a dollar--not a durned cent—to find out about it. It's my opinfon that the airth moves around the sun, and I can lick a as says it don't, and want the sun to move go ahead and let he to you! Max O'Rell Ty You leave the train writes Max O'Rell | Review. From the railwa the hotel cierk, and, lady waitress. Not face. Your name entered sentence s pronounced. Mr. So-and-So, you are No. 219 conductor you are handed over a smile on that He Is placid, solemn and mc ny critter out my way if you folks in Detroit around the airth, then whizzle, and be hanged and arrive in the hotel, n the North Amerlcan tender mercies of the to in small towns, to yilable. on the regisiry, your You are no longer The colored gentleman is close by to carry out the sen- tence. He bids you not to ask questions; obey. The rules of follow him. Yours Is yours 1s to follow and the penitentiary are printed in your bed room. You shall be hune gry from 8 to 10 a. and from 6 to 8 p. m. ment of the rules wol declaration that you a trance of the dining or the lady head wait and bids you follow you recognize a frien tables, m., from 1 to 3 p. m., The slightest infringes uld be followed by the re a crank. At the ens room, the head walter, ress, holds up the hand him or her. Perhaps dly face at one of the Yours 1. not to indulge in fee'ings of that sort; yours is again to follow, obey, and take the seat rhat is ing the whole time spent in America I ne: can man or woman other chair than the ordered to occupy. Buests body was there to tak some one came to small hotels you can timidly walt at the door, assigned to you. Dure that altogether I have ver once saw an Ameri- who dared sit on any one that he or she was Nay, I have seen the when no- e them in charge, until order them about, In ot hope to have the courses brought one after the other so that each one may be served hot to you. Your plate is placed In front of you, and the lady, waltress disposes symmetrically ten to fifteen little oval made the acqualntanc had dealt the dishes, her: “Hallo! what's was no_trifiing with t me a glance that mad ton of my conducte dishes “around It When I first o of this lady, and she I exclaimed, looking at trump?" 'But the hat lady; she threw ad ¢ me feel the abominas s e e e