Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/99

 Rh extent, by the habits, tastes, and moral culture of the people, and, back of this, by the national characteristics. For example, the French, notorious for their indifference to life, their general volatility, frequent political troubles, and exaggerated morbid sentimentality, are celebrated for the propensity to end life by their own hands.

Paris has been, and always will be, celebrated for the prevalence of this crime. The late Forbes Winslow, in his "Anatomy of Suicide," called particular attention to this national failing of the French. They pursue it as an agreeable mode of getting relief from their troubles, and, from the statesman, who blows his brains out to escape political disgrace, to the grisette of former days, who shut herself up with her little pan of charcoal, to seek oblivion from her ruin, the crime is a general one, Montesquieu, on the other hand, asserted that the English are notably a suicidal race, and that London, with its fogs and cheerlessness, is more of a city for suicides than Paris. Forbes Winslow denied this, and demonstrated that fogs had no influence whatever upon suicides; or, at least, that there were fewer suicides in foggy months than in more pleasant ones. Our own statistics substantiate this, as will be shown further on, and the months of April, May, June, July, and August, really the most pleasant of the year as regard sunshine, are those in which more people kill themselves.

The gravity and stolidity of the English people would rather show in their favor as regards this crime. In the year 1810 the number of suicides in London amounted to 188. Comparison with French statistics of the same year proved that five times as many Parisians as Londoners took this means for ending their days. French statistics show the excessive mortality from this cause. In the year 1806, 60 suicides were reported in Rouen, an extremely small city; in 1793, 1,300 in Versailles. Paris, from 1827 to 1830, furnished 6,900 suicides, an average of nearly 1.8 per year. In recent years, we have better statistical returns to work upon.

In the year 1858 the population of London was 2,720,607, and the number of suicides 283. The youngest of these was ten years, and the oldest eighty-five. In Paris, in 1853, the population was 1,053,262. There were 463 suicides, an immense number in excess of London several years later. In Turin, from 1855 to 1859, there were 108 suicides, making an average of 21 a year. In Rome, in 1871, there were only 15 suicides, showing that self-murder is very uncommon among the Italians. In the city of New York, between the years 1866 and 1872, there were 678 suicides, being an increase of 100 in the last year over the first; 511 males, 167 females. For the three years, 1870, 1871, and 1872, there were 359 suicides, 132 being Germans, a very large percentage. As regards matrimonial condition during these years, I find there were 17 married persons, 118 single, 43 widows and widowers, and 27 whose condition was not stated; 275 were males and 84 were females; the age of the oldest was eighty-six, and that of the youngest ten.