Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/301

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 287

Suicides in the United States. Statistics of suicides obtained from news- paper reports for the period 1897-1901, embracing 29,344 cases, mostly in the New England states, show results in part as follows : The ratio of male to female suicides is 3^ to I. The most popular age for suicide is from thirty to forty. Slightly more married than single people of both sexes commit suicide. Single, widowed, and divorced women commit more suicide than men in like situations.

As to method, shooting comes first and poison second. Most women prefer poison. Usually women employ methods which do not mutilate the body. At the age of seventy they prefer drowning.

The cause of suicide in most cases is said to be despondency, but often other causes lie hidden behind this word. Next to despondency come, in order, business loss, ill-health, insanity, disappointed love, domestic trouble, etc. Women are more likely to commit suicide from grief, disappointed love, domestic trouble, or ill-health than men. Few women commit suicide from business loss. Females commit suicide at an earlier age than males, this is because the former develop earlier. Sufferers from business loss, mostly males, prefer shooting ; boys disappointed in love also prefer this method as more dramatic. -The despondent prefer poison. Those who have lost friends or relatives expire by gas or hanging. Most suicides happen on Monday: Sunday comes in for second choice. From 9 P.M. to 12 P.M. is the favorite time of the day. Shooting is pretty evenly distributed throughout the day, but suicides from ill-health and insanity usually come early in the morning, while those from disappointed love and family trouble come late in the evening. Drowning and hanging are most common in the afternoon. WILLIAM B. BAILEY, in Yale Review, May, 1903. J. D.

Anthropology and the History of Religion. That religion has come to be studied historically, that the study of it has been made a part of a philosophic discip- line, that it is considered a chapter in universal history these are new and significant facts for religion itself and indicate a marked change in attitude toward that field of thought and activity. Religion is now subjected to a scientific method of study. One result of this new method is the modification of the so-called Comtean classification of religion into fetishism, or animism, or naturalism, and polytheism, and monotheism. These three fetishism, polytheism, and monotheism do not represent, according to our view, successive stages in the organization of cults and the construction of dogm a j they do not express types of practice and belief nicely separated and distinct, b u t forms of religion in which a given element receives one value in one form and anoth e r value in another form ; for example, the doctrine of the Trinity is historically derive from polytheism. Another result of this method is that not one form of religion, bud elements from all religions in fact, elements common to all command our assent.t

This study has been made along three great lines : (l) by way of archaeology and philology: (2) by way of a critical examination of the sacred literatures, documents, and monuments of the great religions ; (3) by way of anthropology. The third division takes account of the ethnographic and the prehistoric archaeological body of facts, that is, the reconstruction of primitive societies which preceded the age of written or inscribed monuments. The contributions by these several ways of approach promise to be confirmatory and indicate a great gain in rationality for religious activity, and give added significance to the fact of religion. MAURICE VERNES, " Histoire des religions et anthropologie " in Revue de Vecole d' anthropologie de Paris, May, 1903.

T. J. R.

The Victory of Protectionism in Switzerland. The federal chambers had adopted, according to the law passed October 10, 1902, a new customs tariff which was the triumph of the protectionist school. But as, in accordance with the federal constitution, it sufficed that 30,000 electors demand the referendum in order that the law be submitted to popular vote, they divined that the free-traders would look well after their interest in the campaign. They had very little trouble in securing the 30,000 signatures, and January 10 they announced triumphantly that they had received 110,564 adherents. At the head of the movement were the signatures of the towns of Basel, Geneva, Neuchatel, Glarus, and Zurich. The free-traders had good reason to combat the new tariff, as may be seen from a comparison of the tariff of 1891 with