Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1886 — Peculiar Suicides. [ARTICLE]

Peculiar Suicides.

One of the evils inseparable from the modern general difusion of all aorta of news is the encouragement <of criminal imitation. It was long ago noticed that pecular Crimea are apt to be copied, and that this is especially the case in regard to silicide. Most readers probably rerfteml>er the story of the grove of trees which Napoleon caused to be burned Itecauee it was found impossible to prevCnt the soldiers from hanging themselves in it A similar story is told of a military sentry-box. It was found necessary tb build a cage over the gallery at' tfeji top of the London monument because It had - become a favorite place for suicidal plunges. A similar reputation attached for many years to Waterloo bridge in London. In France, some years ago, a foolish young couple, Maturated with Rousseauism, fastened themselves together with gay-colored ribbons and threw themselves into the Seine. The idea took, and for a time this mode of suicide was quite the fashiqn. Statistics show that the average number of suicides remains tolerably constant in proportion to population, though it no doubt rises when some widespread convulsion diorganizes society. But the ways of committing suicide change, and people not only exercise choice in the matter, but are influenced in selecting the mode by the recent occurrence of any striking events of the kind. It is true that no imitator has yet been found of the insane German whose ambition it was to crucify himself, and who with an astonishing perversion of ingenuity contrived an apparatus by which, after fastening his feet and nailing one hand to the crosspiece, he was enabled to hoist the heavy cross out of the window and exhibit himself to the whole town suspended from it. That, however, involved too much labor, and suicides usually desire to shuffle off this mortal coil* as easily as possible. Speaking roughly, it may be said that women prefer drowning, and men hanging. Of course, many of both sexes take poison. In France for a long time asphyxiation by charcoal gas was popular with the poor. The last reported h’repch suicide, however, seems to have been suggested by one of Cherbuliez’s in Belleville killed his and then himself. The double suicide had been agreed upon, and its method settled deliberately. The details were somewhat different, but the general plan resembles that of the hero and heroine of “La Ravanche de Joseph Noirel.” The resemblance, in fact, is so close that we should think the event calculated to make M. Cherbuliez feel rather uncomfortable, if he is particularly sensitive, though of course no real responsibility can be predicated in such a matter. — New York Tribune.