Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1876 — The Suicide Mania. [ARTICLE]

The Suicide Mania.

. Suicide in the United States is reaching a point where we are warranted in com peting With France .both in tlie number of those who shuffle off tlie mortal coll, and in the uqique methods and motives of the operation. The uncouth Indian farmhand, whose machine for self-murder has already been described in these columns, has never been rivaled by any madnikn in France in cool and horrible ingenuity, and the papers during the past week or two have contained’ narifetives of suicide, tire motives for winch atv as fttrnnge and unaccountable a* ever impelled- any Frerfohman to jump into the lire to come. This mania for suicide is worth the atteur tiop of the moralists and the psychologists, not alone for the alarming frequency of its manifestations, but'forthe apparent insufficiency of cutfee that leads to it In so many cases. There tare instances wliiere suicide is not an unnatural crime. A man may be afflicted with a painful and in.-, curable disease. He may have suffered agonies with it for years until life grows to be a burden and death is a happy release, and rather than suffer on without liojie he takes his life and ends his misery. A man may be broken down in health, hopelessly ruined in business, persecuted with creditors, deserted by his friends, and see no avenue of escape from nis sufferings except by self-murder. A man In an unguarded moment may have committed some dishonorable rection, and unable to endure his shaiiie or to bear the pricks and stings of conscience he frees himself fforn his mental torture in the only possible way. In all these cases, although they show a lack of courage, there, is a sufficient motive. It has operated since the creation of tlie world, and will continue to do so to the end of the world, assuming that cowardly people will live until thats time. There are numerous cases, howevef, In which no decent cause can be shown, and some for which there is no cause, decent or indecent. In N.ew -Jersey, the other day, one little girl attempted to take her life because she had been naughty and felt badly about it, and another because her little companion had died ami be lonesome in Heaven without It might be possible for a very inujudhn person to extract a grain of fceritimeritaUsiu Qu| of these juvenile suicides, .tlje average opinion of. sensible pcopjp wLLUbe that |f/ the parents of these precb'6ious Self-mur-’ derers had been inore profuse in theluse, of the lyrclr upon their ? darlings,, they” ■would have hail more sen Se. Ju Atjanta. Ga rj a few days since, Miss EilJ Hjtfrfebh* a sclioql-girl of fiftoen, pf the most prominent Meihodisf >‘or tliiU city, threw .herself into tlie river rapids, arid >va§ ’ The CTlub bus (Ga.) Afaw says - that, , “ On' rea'cnihg the bank, which‘is, about, fqrty yurdssliq eto the water, die. djscovei'eir a jmvNa nes’ who, standing not far. off) she thought and correctly, too, wnsj watching Her.' ’Shi ftnmediately rushed fbr the river. Mr, Ns mes pursued her. When he was within : orfy feet of her she had reached the’ Vater’s edge—she tore her collar loose iri 'Tront, looked around with a smile, as thodgh ex-’ ulting over a conquest, gave three Swings and leaped ftom the rock.” A very melodramatic exit from the world, but no cause is known why the young girl should wish to make any exit at all. In New York City, last Sunday, a young lad of sixteen, a clerk in a banking house, shot himself, and no cause is known why he did it. Sometimes the motive for satcidfl verges on the ridiculoiis, as in the-case of Diedrich Braunlieben, sixty-two .years of. age, and old enough to have known better. This precious fool cut iris Venerable throat because his second wife refusal to go with him andassisthim in payings his respects to the grave of his first wire. The only Creditable feature of the affair is that he had the good taste to cut his own throat, instead of getting mad with the Second Mrs. Braunlieben and cutting hers. For the suicide of fools and madmen, of grown-up male idiots and adult maudlin women, we may at least invent some excuse, but what excuse will be sufficient to explain this dreadful propensity of children to commit self-murder ? What: possible cause can there be that the dawning of life should beso clouded over? Ypung life never has a denouement of tragedy. There is no situation in childhood so desperate and distressing that there is not a strong probability of relief. The sky is not. always overclouded in youth. The storm and shine alternate pi every young life, however hard the circumstances of its surroundings may be. Despair only springs from the accumulations of years and the buffetings of fate continuing until the victim is. no longer able to eiidure them. The cause of these juvenile suicides is hard to find, because, in a natural, healthy child, the whole course and condition of life tend in ah opposite direction. The New York Tribune, in A recent discussion of this subject, says very pertinently : “ Many a boy has been ruined for life by a misunderstanding of his idiosyncrasies on the part of those to whom his culture was confided. If he has naturally a bad temper, or is continually desponding, or if there is an abnormal development of his imagination or of his curiosity, he may, whenever sufficiently and peculiarly excited; seek gratification w ytilcf through a resource about which he does not stop to reason. ■ This may specially be the case with children of an epileptic difl-, thesis. It is for. parents carefully to, watch their charges, and fully to comprehend, if possible, their peculiarities* adapting culture and discipline to each particular case.” This view of the case might be'Omphasized by calling attention to the importance of watching the reading of such a child. 'A child who is morbid in temperament or over-eeutimental in , its imaginings, may find pn impelling cause toward suicide in the reams of sickly swash that are issued from spine .of our publication houses, both in the. shape of newspapers an£ books. They will leftff a qhild of this kznd, hmt aa surely towatd 1 spicide ps they will leaff, a cluld of immoral tendencies tpward crime, WhatWrif” may lie the cause, _ however, ihf laqt" ex--S’ ts, arid the fact Js of a’ consequence‘so arming as tp demand tnh .earnest, 'attention of the ihbralists.— Chicago Tribune.'