Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 291, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 December 1911 — FACTS ABOUT SUICIDE [ARTICLE]

FACTS ABOUT SUICIDE

SAXONY LEADS IN NUMBER ANl> IRELAND JS LAST.-7 77? Seff-Murdfcr Far More Prevalent Among Men Than Among Women -■■ —Former Seem to Prefer Hanging and Latter Drowning, 7 ■ - ■■■• ____ Modern conditions in all countries are such that the subject of suicide must occasionally come under discussion in every community of any size. Not that suicide is of modern origin, for history shows that it occurred In very ancient times, but those who have made a study of the subject maintain, any probably with reason/ that the highly organized conditions of" modern society and the social abnormalities and nerve disturbances incident thereto, promote and strengthen the suicidal tendency. Thia may be mere theory, but statistics do show* that it is more prevalent in some countries than In others. Statistics covering a term of years show that during the entire period of observation Ireland had the fewest annual number of suicides, seventeen to the million of inhabitants, and Saxony, the' largest number, 392 to the million; Denmark showed 251 per annual to the million inhabitants; Switzerland, 239, France 180, Beligium 100, England and Wales 75. The Swiss people are commonly supposed to be happy and comparatively free from care, and it seems strange that the average suicide rate should be several hundred per cent, greater in Switzerland than in Ireland. On another point statistics are more conclusive, for they show that in all countries the ijroportion of suicides is three or four men to one woman, and that this proportion continues from year to year. The fair inference would seem to be either that men are more subject to the suicidal tendency than women or else that they yield to it more readily. Either supposition opens a field for biological and metaphysical speculation. Anther curious fact* disclosed by the statistics is that* suicide is much more common among Protestant than amongst Roman Catholic communities, while Jews have a smaller suicide rate than Roman Catholics. It is also demonstrated that self-mur-der, as suicide is styled by Christian ethics and law, is more common among the educated than the illiterate classes, and more prevalent in city than in rural districts. These facts might be acounted for on the theory that educated people are more sensitive to misfortune than the illiterate, and the nervous strain of city life greater than that of country life. The suicide rat© is higher in certain occupations and, professions than in others. It is high among soldiers and doctors. As to the modes of suicide they are found to vary but slightly in different countries. Hanging is the most common among males; then drowning,, firearms, knife cuts and poison, in the order named. With women a different order prevails, viz., first drowning, then poison, hanging and knife cuts and firearms. ’