It will be observed, that this account seems to controvert the inference, that suicide prevails most in the hottest weather; for the excess is in the spring quarter and month of April. But if Paris resemble London, the fact that suicide prevails most at the hottest season, will still not be doubted. The fact is, that the population in the former as in the latter is always infinitely more numerous in the spring. There are three-fourths more of the upper and middle ranks residing in London in the spring than in the other quarters, and consequently there will be more suicides to reckon in the vernal season.

There is no question that temperature has a marked effect in producing insanity, of which suicide is a feature. It has been satisfactorily ascertained, that when the atmosphere is about 80° Fahr. the propensity to suicide is most prevalent in all temperate regions.

November hitherto has borne the reproach as most conducing by its gloominess to despondency, despair, and suicide. This month proves, in Paris as in London, to produce the fewest of these afflicting events.

Although, as I have before observed,* I believe that the increase of insanity is not greater than the increase of population, yet I do not hold the same opinion in respect to suicide. There is too much reason to conclude that it is increasing in England, as it is to a greater and frightful extent in many other countries; and for reasons which I shall presently state, I fear that it will still further augment.

*Inquiry, &c. p. 93.

SUICIDE.

. I have refuted elsewhere the absurd and longattached opprobrium, that suicide prevailed more in England than in any other country. God knows it is still too common; but there is proof that this propensity prevails in a much higher degree among other nations.

Mr. Kamptz, of Berlin, in a statistical work founded on official returns, reported the proportion which the suicides bore, in 1817, to the population of the following cities; to this I added the decimal proportion to every thousand inhabitants, and formed a Table of the results,† which I here republish :—

Totals..... 439......319,899......or 1.36 in 1000

The proportion of suicides in Copenhagen, Paris, and

The proportion of suicides, therefore, in the capitals

*Inquiry, &c. and Lond. Med. Repos. vol. iv. p. 441.

+ Inquiry, p. 92.

The number of suicides in 1826 had increased in Paris to 511.

of Paris, Berlin, and Copenhagen, was, in 1817, in relation to that of London, as 5 to 2, 5 to 3, and 3 to 1.

In Copenhagen, the increase of suicide in twenty years was rapid beyond comprehension, and had arrived at an enormous height, viz.

This greatly exceeds the increase of population of any nation.

It appears happily to have diminished to fifty-one in

1817.

In Paris and Berlin, the number since 1817 has augmented; and likewise in London, though not in a ratio equal with the population.

Professor Casper has published a curious retrospect of the causes of the suicides committed in the last six years and a half in Berlin. The total was five hundred. He thus arranges them:

It may be objected to this enumeration of the causes of suicide, that more than half the number are unaccounted for; but I also object to the other moiety, that little reliance generally can be placed on the previous

SUICIDE.

history of the suicide, and that in most cases none at all can be obtained.

The modes of quitting life which the individuals are said to have selected, if correct, may offer to the moralist subject for reflection. They are thus reported:

In

Women are less disposed to suicide than men. England, France, and Germany, the proportion of the former to the latter is about one in three. At Boston, The disproportion, in America, it is nearly the same. therefore, between the sexes, is much greater than in common insanity, without the suicidical character.

Unfortunately, my means of information do not enable me to prosecute this interesting inquiry; for it might be useful in a political as well as a moral point of view, to investigate the causes of the great difference which obtains in the prevalence of suicide in different countries and cities.

Independent of all those sources of misery and despair common in the revolutions of all states, local causes often operate to multiply suicide in particular places.

There is another and still more influential cause, though unnoticed, of the increase of suicide, and that is, the rapid and immense increase of periodical journals. There are few persons now comparatively in this country who cannot read, and the means of so doing is amply

There is a difference of twenty-five in the totals.

supplied by a teeming and cheap press. As the eagerness for this species of gratification has augmented, the public taste has become more vitiated and debased; and hence, nothing is found so attractive as tales of horror and of wonder, and every coroner's inquest on an unhappy being who has destroyed himself is read with extraordinary avidity. Not content with domestic horrors, we see our most respectable diurnal papers industriously selecting from every foreign source these lamentable proofs of the degradation of humanity, and dressing them in colours to excite commiseration rather than the abhorrence of Christian feeling.

Who can doubt that the frequency and general diffusion of these reports familiarise the mind of the lowest ranks 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. Were this offence to be less noticed, it would be less frequent.* I believe, too, that the increase of crime has a similar origin. What induces more to first offences than ludicrous police reports of criminal acts, or scenic representations of successful vice?

The daily circulation of suicides, through the medium of the daily papers, also operates in another way to their repetition. No sooner is the mind disturbed by any moral cause, than the thoughts are at once directed, through these channels, to meditate an act, which otherwise, neither predisposition, despair, nor the nature of

* The reasoning of a young woman, who was rescued from a desperate attempt at suicide, confirms this opinion: upon being questioned how she came to commit so dreadful an act, she replied, "that she knew other people killed themselves when they were miserable, and she did not know why she should be prevented from terminating her existence."— Times Newspaper, Dec. 3, 1827.