THE RECENT SUICIDES.

The fearful multiplication of suicides at the present time, renders it important that the attention of the community should be directed to its exciting causes. In Boston and its vicinity, it appears to rage as an epidemic disease. Scarcely have the community recovered from the shock which one such fearful deed communicates, before another and a still more appalling account is passing the rounds of the periodical press.

By most writers upon insanity, the propensity to suicide is considered as one of the delusions of a deranged intellect. It is a monomania. Like any other delusion of insanity, it appears to take possession of the mind with unconquerable control. There are not a few cases on record of individuals whose moral feelings have so powerfully struggled against this propensity, that they have cast themselves upon the protection of their friends, and entreated their constant vigilance, to preserve them from self-destruction. What an unaccountable state of mind is this! An individual is hurried on by an impulse, against which he contends with all his moral energies, and yet contends in vain. Says a writer upon insanity, "At this time a lady is under my care in whom insanity is hereditary. Her case is mania, alternating with melancholia; and when in the latter state, the suicidal disposition comes on. She is perfectly conscious of her condition, reasons upon, and laments her extravagant actions or gloomy ideas, and piteously begs she may not be trusted."

Not long since, a communication appeared in one of the Boston papers from an individual, who stated that he felt, almost continually, a disposition to destroy himself. He entreated the editor no longer to publish accounts of self-destruction, for whenever such accounts met his eye, he was urged forward by an impulse almost impossible to resist, to imitate the deed.

The mechanism of the human frame is mysterious indeed. The derangement of some little organ of the brain may send corresponding derangement to the mind. We know not how or why. An individual is thus, doubtless through organic disease, hurried on to the fearful deed of self-destruction. How far in such cases the deed is a crime, and to what extent the unhappy victims are accountable, is known only to Him, into whose awful presence they so suddenly rush. We cannot however refrain from believing that in almost every such case, strong as may be the temptation, there is provided a way of escape, and that he who yields to the temptation, is guilty of a fearful crime, and must answer for it at the bar of God.

There are undoubtedly cases of insanity, in which individuals are entirely irresponsible for anything they may say or do. Rea

son is entirely dethroned. The mind with "tumult and confusion all embroiled" now gropes and again rushes through the clouded wilderness of its chaotic thoughts. But this is not the ordinary character of insanity. The majority perhaps of the inmates of an insane hospital, are justly accountable to God and to man, for much that they say and do. Reason has received a shock, but is not destroyed. The mind is in a paroxysm of excitement, but still conscience speaks in a voice that is heard, and which ought to be obeyed. Upon some one or two topics they are bewildered, while upon all others they reason conclusively, and their consciousness of right and wrong is unimpaired. It is to be feared that most of those who commit suicide, are the subjects of this partial insanity only. They know what they are doing. They are conscious that it is sin. And yet in the gloom and despair which overshadow them, they prefer to rush unbidden into the presence and to the judgment of their God, rather than to endure the ills which are laid upon them here. The writer was a short time since conversing with a female, who had made an attempt upon her life, but who was taken from the water when nearly drowned, and animation restored. "Oh," said she, "wicked wretch that I was, I tried to drown myself. I knew it was wrong, but I was so unhappy that I longed to die. I hope God will forgive me, and I am resolved never to make the attempt again." She seemed to be as fully conscious of the deed she had attempted, and of the sin of that deed, as any one could be. But she was weary of a life of unnumbered woes. Those fiends in the shape of men, the rum-sellers of our state, had supplied her husband with that article which had made her house a hell. Mr. Editor, you will say that this is a harsh expression, and will feel disposed to pass your pen over the sentence.* Still, sir, stop! If you doubt the mildness of the expression, go with with me and see this poor woman, and hear the story of her suffering life— go with me, sir, from house to house, of penury, and of weeping, and of wo, and you will try to add intensity to the expression, and if possible to throw a barbed arrow into the rum-seller's heart.

This poor woman was miserable, and she had abundant cause to be miserable. Her nerves were shattered by her sufferings, and she was incapacitated from taking care of herself or her family. She was insane in the same sense in which the dyspeptic is insane, when gloom envelopes his mind, and depression paralyzes all his mental and all his physical energies. In the majority of the cases of suicide, the insanity is probably of this nature. The mind is enfeebled by bodily disease, or the body enervated by mental suf

We did indeed pause at the expression, "fiends in the shape of men," when reading this article, in manuscript, and endeavored to modify the phrase. On reading what follows, however, we concluded to let the passage stand as it is, to speak for itself.

EDS.

fering, and the individual in this state of gloom and despair, wickedly seeks release from suffering, in the imagined repose of death.

We cannot avoid this conclusion, when we see the motives which induce to the act, the determination with which the purpose is pursued, the wise arrangement of all worldly concerns in preparation for the intended departure, the skillful adaptation of the means employed to quiet the suspicions and elude the vigilance of friends, and the written statement often left behind for the information of mourning relatives. Take the case of the unhappy, because guilty, Ackers. I say guilty, for we must not allow our sense of right and wrong to be perverted through sympathy for the suffering which guilt incurs. Says this misguided man, in the letter he wrote just before rushing to his death of ignominy,

"I have lived, or dragged out a miserable existence for two or three months past. Sleepless nights and a guilty conscience have led me on to the fatal act. O that seven or eight months past of my existence could be blotted out - but no, I must go, and ere this paper is read, my spirit is gone to my Maker, to give an account of my misdeeds here, and receive the dreadful sentence for self-destruction and abused confidence."

Here is evidence of a mind roused to the utmost intensity of suffering, yet by no means deprived of the sense of accountability. This last crime capped the climax of his sins. It was performed under the distinct consciousness that it merited, and would receive, the frown of God.

There are undoubtedly circumstances, in which suicide is com mitted, when the mental alienation is such, as entirely to remove moral accountability. The reasoning powers are for the time, so totally inoperative, or bewildered, that the unhappy maniac knows not what he does. The paroxysm of insanity may come like the lightning's flash, and like the lightning's flash, the unpremeditated deed be performed. The languishing sufferer, with enfeebled mind and shattered nerves, may, under the impulse of the moment, unconsciously find a grave. Says Burrows, “a Christian who believes in the rewards and punishments of a future life, and rushes deliberately into the presence of Him, by whom his conduct in a future state as well as in this state, is to be judged, cannot be of a sane mind, when he commits an act which is of itself a heinous sin."

Still if evidence is to guide our judgment, we are compelled to believe that, in the vast majority of cases, the insanity, if there be insanity, is of so partial a kind, that the individual is by no means relieved from accountability. He is guilty of outraging the moral feelings of the community, and of despising the commands of God.

Not a few self-styled philosophers, have been found, who have written labored dissertations to prove that any man has a right to leave the world when he is dissatisfied with his condition. Says Seneca. "If thy mind be melancholy, and in misery, thou mayest put a period to this wretched condition; wherever thou lookest there is an end to it. See that precipice! there thou mayest have liberty. Seest thou that sea, that river, that well? liberty is at the bottom of it; that little tree? freedom hangs upon it. Thy own neck, thy own throat may be a refuge to thee from such servitude; yea, every vein of thy body."

If Seneca could, with a sound mind, thus plead, he could, with a mind equally sound, act consistently with this belief. Not a few examples might be introduced of those who have thus impiously argued, and afterwards thus impiously and ignominiously died. Says Burrows, "Abroad, we not unfrequently hear of double or mutual suicides; for example, when two lovers meet with an obstacle to their union, they resolve to unite in a voluntary death. Such incidents are rarely met with in England: its inhabitants are not yet romantic enough for these exhibitions." How are we to designate the state of such minds? I know not whether to call them lunatics or fools. The English language does not afford epithets sufficiently contemptuous to be applied to such a love-sick girl, and simpering blockhead of a whining swain. It is done for effect. They think it very pretty, and mightily romantic to die, alack! for love. Such cases should meet with the detestation of an outraged community.

When the benevolence of the press, out of regard to the feelings of afflicted friends, represses the exhibition of indignation and contempt, which are thus unavoidably excited, an injury is left upon the public mind. Many are induced to palliate the crime, and to look with sympathy upon the unfeeling and degraded victims. They aspire to similar eclat in their romantic exit from the world, and perhaps even long for an opportunity to die so very prettily. The moral sense of the community is impaired by it, and suicide ceases to be regarded as a crime.

Says Dr. Burrows, one of the most eminent writers upon insanity in all its varied forms; "A reviewer deems me harsh for speaking of suicide generally as a vice, and conceives that I could only have admitted the principle by a slip of the pen. To judge every act of self-destruction to be criminal, when reason is shoved from her seat, would be both unphilosophical and unfeeling. But it becomes a real vice when it assumes the type of an epidemic. It is then the effect of imitation; those who fall into it may be weak and wicked, but it is not the result of that physical disorder of the intellectual faculties which is the essence of insanity."

It does seem harsh to speak of suicide as a crime, for we cannot refrain from sympathizing with the wounded feelings of friends. The writer of these pages is not insensible to such considerations,

and often has his pen stopped, while gliding over these sheets, reluctant to pursue so painful a topic, when here and there the heart of a reader may have its half-healed wound opened afresh. But it is time that the press should speak upon this subject in a different tone. The alarming increase of this vice, demands a voice of loud and undisguised reprehension.

A young woman in London was, a few years since, rescued from a desperate attempt at suicide. In reply to the inquiries why she should have attempted so dreadful a deed, she said, "that she knew that other people killed themselves when they were miserable, and she did not know why she should be prevented from terminating her existence." This is the unavoidable consequence of familiarizing the mind with these reports. These lamentable proofs of the degradation of humanity, are caught up with avidity from all sections of the country, and circulated through the land, without a note of censure. If any individual is in circumstances predisposing to this deed, here is a suggestion which comes as a powerful temptation to the mind. "Who can doubt," says the able writer before alluded to, "that the frequency and general diffusion of these reports, familiarize the mind with suicide, and thus diminish the detestation, which ought to be felt, at the mere contemplation of acts, so repugnant to God, and derogatory to man. The increase of suicide, I am convinced, is mainly attributable to these causes."

There are probably at all times, throughout the country, many minds in such a state of excitement, perhaps of partial insanity, that a newspaper account of a case of suicide is the immediate cause of self-destruction. If such cases are noticed at all, they should be noticed in such a manner as to produce upon the public mind a deep sense of the ignominy of such a death. Such an impression fixed firmly upon the mind, would probably be a safeguard, even in many cases where insanity was impelling to the deed.

In a particular regiment of British soldiers on the Island of Malta, a few years after it was taken possession of by the English, suicides became alarmingly frequent. For a long time every effort to stop them was ineffectual. Cases were continually multiplying throughout the regiment. At last the commandant resolved, if possible, to connect ignominy with the crime. He proclaimed to the soldiers, that the body of the next suicide should be denied Christian burial, and treated with every indignity. An opportunity was soon offered for carrying his resolve into effect. A soldier committed suicide. The whole regiment was drawn out to witness the naked body, tied to a hurdle, and dragged through the camp with every mark of ignominy and contempt. The body was then thrown into a ditch, to decay amid the filth with which it was surrounded. The effects was immediate. Not another case of suicide occurred in the regiment.