Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1880 — Suicide in France. [ARTICLE]

Suicide in France.

'i'hft most recently published-figures show that suicide is on the increase in France. Before the German-Franco war the average number of suicices only slightly exceeded five thousand a year, and now they exceed six thousand. The increase in the rate directly after the war was generally noticed, bat was not considered extraordinary considering the public and private disasters suffered during, the time hostilities lasted, and, indeed, afterward; but now, many years after the war, there are no symptom of a diminution. Dr. Decaisne, who has writen at some length on the subject, says that in Paris there are three times as many suicides as in the country; that most of the men who destroy themselves are bachelors: that spring is the time of year when suicides are most frequent, and that death by hanging is more frequently resorted to than any other mode of self destruction, being considered the most expeditious. Some statistics published before the fhll of the empire revealed some curious facts. Thus, the yearly number of suicides among men ofgood education averaged 440; among men who could read and write well, 800: amorg men who could read, but not spell correctly 1,000; among men who could neither read nor write, 1; among persons of no instruction, 36. Again it was found that more persons in easy circumstances committed the crime than persons without my visible means of subsistence.