Part 2

Among the ancients, suicide was very frequently resorted to, sometimes for the most trivial reasons, and was considered part of their code of religion and honour. By the Romans especially, it was regarded quite in the light of a national custom, and by their laws a man was justified in killing himself when worn out by lasting pain or lingering disease, or burdened with a load of debt, or even from sheer weariness of life (_tædium vitæ_). His will was valid; and if intestate, his heirs succeeded him. Among the illustrious individuals of former times who quitted this world voluntarily and prematurely, we find the names of Demosthenes, Antony and Cleopatra, Cato, Hannibal, Cassius and Brutus, and many others. Suicide was looked upon as a cardinal virtue by the Stoics, whose founder, Zeno, hanged himself at the ripe old age of ninety-eight. The custom was also highly commended by Lucretius and the Epicureans. The philosophers of old spoke of it as ‘a justifiable escape from the miseries of life;’ and as ‘the greatest indulgence given to man;’ Diogenes even going so far as to declare that ‘the nearer to suicide the nearest to virtue.’

The ideas of the ancients concerning this practice underwent a great change after the time of Constantine the Great, with the advancement of the Christian religion, which has always discouraged suicide, and regarded it as one of the degrees of murder. During the middle ages, when religious sentiment was predominant, instances of self-destruction were few and far between, these few being mostly caused by the monotony of monastic life; but with the Renaissance was revived a modified form of Stoicism, with, of course, a return of suicide. In More’s _Utopia_, the inhabitants of the happy republic, when, from sickness or old age, they are become a burden to themselves and to all about them, are exhorted—but in nowise compelled—by their priests to deliver themselves voluntarily from their ‘prison and torture,’ or to allow others to effect their deliverance. To the somewhat melancholy tendency of the Elizabethan period and the psychological studies of Shakspeare, succeeded a long period of calm; but towards the end of the eighteenth century began, with _Werther_—who has been called ‘Hamlet’s posthumous child’—the era of modern suicidal melancholy. This differs essentially from the suicidal era of the ancients, being psychical rather than physical. Whereas theirs was born of sheer exhaustion and satiety, with want of belief in a future state of existence, that of the present day is the melancholy of a restless and unceasingly analysing soul, eternally brooding over the insoluble problems ‘Whence?’ and ‘Whither?’ which disordered state not unfrequently leads to incapacity for action, and finally to inability to live.

It is a very prevalent but erroneous belief that suicide is invariably preceded by insanity. Self-destruction is always an _unnatural_ act, and a violation of the laws of nature, but is not, therefore, necessarily an _insane_ act. On the contrary, a large minority—some authorities say the majority—of suicidal acts are perpetrated by persons who cannot be called other than sane, though their mental state is indisputably more or less abnormal at the time, and the organic action of the brain and nervous system sometimes in a state of excitement bordering on real pathological irritation. Dr Wynter affirms the suicidal impulse to be ‘an inexplicable phenomenon on the borderlands of insanity;’ the power of the will to conquer any impulse is the sole difference between a healthy and an unsound mind. But self-destruction is not, as a rule, the outcome of a mere impulse, but an act of longer or shorter deliberation, and brought about by some cause, which may be either real or imaginary; and here we have the simple test for distinguishing between sane and insane suicides, namely, the absence or presence of delusions. Outside of insanity, the passions and emotions are generally at the root of self-murder; remorse, dread of exposure and punishment, long wearing sorrow or disease, or hopeless poverty, are the usual causes for an act which is generally regarded with far too great equanimity, and occasionally even with commiseration, being looked upon as ‘a catastrophe rather than a crime,’ although condemned by the religion and laws of the land. With lunatics, the causes inciting to the act are mainly if not wholly imaginary, or delusional; they often fancy they hear voices perpetually urging them to destroy themselves, and these supposed supernatural commands they generally obey sooner or later. Men in prosperous circumstances have frequently been known to make away with themselves from _fear_ of poverty and want; others have perhaps committed some trifling act of delinquency, which they magnify into an unpardonable offence, only to be expiated by death. Some insane persons will kill those dear to them, especially their own children, before destroying themselves, probably with the view of preserving them from so wretched a lot as they conceive their own to be. There is usually previous ill health and depression, with great desire for solitude, in these cases of suicide by the insane, many of which could be prevented by the timely exercise of proper care and supervision, as is clearly shown by their mostly occurring among those lunatics who are not under proper restraint.

_Melancholia_ is the name given to that form of delusional insanity, or partial moral mania, which chiefly manifests itself in a desire for self-destruction. Hypochondriacs may be said to be in the first stage of this, and in the first stage very fortunately most of them remain. They feel death would be a blessing, and are constantly talking about killing themselves; but they are very irresolute, and if they do summon up courage enough to make the attempt, it is generally abortive, and is not repeated.

Equally devoid of foundation is the assertion so persistently made by foreigners, and at last almost believed in by ourselves, that England is the land of suicide. Frenchmen especially seem seriously to entertain the idea that we are always ready to blow out our brains in a fit of the spleen, caused by our much-maligned climate, and general dullness and lack of amusement! In point of fact, Paris itself is the headquarters of self-destruction, and its Morgue one of the principal and most frequented show-places of the city. The cases there are much more numerous in proportion to the number of the population than in this country, and have been variously estimated at from three to five times as many; but there is not the publicity afforded them in the Parisian press that is given them by our own widely circulated daily and weekly papers. As a proof that climate has but little connection with the tendency to commit suicide, it may be pointed out that the inhabitants of damp and foggy Holland, a ‘country that draws fifty foot of water,’ are by no means addicted to self-slaughter. The buoyant, light-hearted Irish are, with the exception perhaps of the Neapolitans, the least suicidal people in Europe.

In what may be designated, as compared with European countries, the topsy-turvy nations of China and Japan, suicide is quite an institution, and is apparently looked upon as a fine art; so much so, that in the latter country the sons of people of quality exercise themselves in their youth for five or six years, in order that they may kill themselves, in case of need, with grace and elegance. If a functionary of the Japanese government has incurred disgrace, he is allowed to put an end to his own life, which spares him the ignominy of punishment at the hands of others, and secures the reversion of his place to his son. All government officials are provided with a habit of ceremony, made of hempen cloth, necessary for such an occasion; the sight of this garment must serve, we should think, as a perpetual _memento mori_, and as a warning not to stray from the right path. As soon as the order commanding suicide has been communicated to a culprit, he invites his friends to a feast, and takes formal leave of them; then, the order of the court having been read over to him, he makes his ‘last dying speech and confession,’ draws his sabre, and cuts himself across the body or rips himself up, when a confidential servant at once strikes off his head. In China also, the regulations for self-destruction are rigorously defined and carried out; a mandarin who can boast of the peacock’s feather is graciously allowed to choke himself by swallowing gold-leaf; while one of less lofty rank, who is only able to sport a red button on his cap, is obliged to rest content with the permission to strangle himself with a silken cord. In India, the voluntary self-immolation of widows on their deceased husbands’ funeral pyres was, until recently, a universal practice, and still takes place occasionally in secret, though very properly discouraged by the government. In some parts of the East Indies the natives vow suicide in return for boons solicited from their idols; and in fulfilment of this vow, fling themselves from lofty precipices, and are dashed to pieces. Or they will destroy themselves after having had a quarrel with any one, in order that their blood may lie at their adversary’s door.

Contrary to the generally received opinion, the spring and summer are the seasons when suicides most abound. The months of March, June, and July are those chiefly affected by males for this purpose; while females seem to prefer September, the much-abused November, and January. The time of day chosen for the deed is usually either early morning or early evening. The tendency to suicide varies with the occupation, and is said to be twice as great among artisans as it is among labourers; it is certainly much greater in cities than in rural districts, and increases with the increase of civilisation and education. The fact that married people are much less prone to self-destruction than the unmarried may be accounted for by the theory of natural selection, as it is usually, and especially with women, only the more healthy both in mind and body who enter the married state; while the fact of suicides among males being always so much more numerous than among females is perhaps to a certain extent to be explained by the former having a wider choice of means at their disposal, and ready at hand. Women, as a rule, prefer to put an end to their lives by drowning; and as they may have to travel a long distance before being able to accomplish their design, it is not unlikely that they may sometimes repent and alter their minds before their journey’s end. Again, people who throw themselves into the water are not unfrequently rescued before life is extinct, and restored. Unless insane, they are probably cured by the attempt, and will not renew it, the mind having regained its self-control. Suicide is but rarely met with in old people, and is also very uncommon in children, although instances are recorded of quite young children hanging or drowning themselves on being reproved or punished for some venial fault.

An ill-directed education and certain objectionable descriptions of literature favour the disposition to self-destruction. The propensity is most strongly marked in those persons who are of a bilious or of a nervous temperament.

Some would-be suicides resolve to kill themselves in a particular way, and may have to wait years for an opportunity; others will make use of the first mode of destruction that presents itself. Taylor says: ‘The sight of a weapon or of a particular spot where a previous suicide has been committed, will often induce a person, who may hitherto have been unsuspected of any such disposition, at once to destroy himself.’ Individuals conscious of their liability to commit self-murder would do well, therefore, to avoid that ‘sight of means to do ill deeds’ which might lead to the ‘ill deed’ being ‘done’ in a sudden fit of depression or frenzy.

The publicity afforded by newspapers to any remarkable case of suicide, with full description of details, has unquestionably a pernicious effect, not only by suggesting a means to those already predisposed to the act, but also by its tending to lessen the natural horror of self-murder inherent in the human mind. Example has avowedly a great influence in exciting the propensity to suicide; and a man who cannot justify the rash act to his own conscience, will find excuses for it in the examples of others. This imitative propensity may even amount to an epidemic, as at Versailles in 1793, when no fewer than thirteen hundred persons destroyed themselves. Some years ago, the Hôtel des Invalides, Paris, was the scene of one of these outbreaks; one of the invalids hanged himself on a crossbar of the institution; and in the ensuing fortnight, six or seven others followed his example on the same bar, the epidemic being only stopped by the governor having the passage closed.

Insane people will sometimes display great ingenuity and perseverance in the means by which they choose to put an end to themselves. They are very determined; and if frustrated in one attempt, will make others, perhaps all in different ways; and unless very strictly guarded, will generally succeed at last in effecting their purpose. An instance of almost incredible determination to die is that of a French gentleman who dug a trench in a wood and lay in it sixteen days, writing down in a journal each day the state of his feelings. From this journal it appeared that he suffered greatly, at first from hunger, and afterwards from thirst and cold. He left his trench, and got a little water from the pump of an inn near the wood on the sixth night; and this he continued to do until the tenth day, when he was too weak to stir. He ceased to write on the fifteenth day; and on the sixteenth he was discovered by a countryman, who tried—but in vain—to restore him. He died on the eighteenth day.

The heredity of suicide, though not universally conceded, is admitted by most authorities, and according to some, the tendency to self-destruction is more disposed to be hereditary than any other form of insanity. Certainly a great number of those who put an end to their own lives are members of families in which instances of suicide or insanity have previously occurred, and the propensity is usually most strong at some particular age. Dr Gall mentions the case of a Frenchman of property who killed himself, leaving a large sum of money to be divided among his seven children. None of these met with any real misfortunes in life, but all succumbed, before attaining their fortieth year, to the mania for suicide.

Intemperance, the root of half the idiocy and a considerable percentage of the insanity of the country, is also largely contributory to the rapidly increasing number of cases of self-murder. In the French classification, which is ‘generally admitted to be pretty true of all countries,’ fifteen per cent. are put down to drink; while thirty-four per cent. are attributed to insanity, twenty-three per cent. to grief, and twenty-eight per cent. to various other causes.

Suicide, whether regarded as a crime or a disease, is in all cases a rash, ill-advised act of impatience. Napoleon—who, when his misfortunes reached a climax, declared he had not ‘enough of the Roman in him’ for suicide—described it as an act of cowardice, a running away from the enemy before being defeated. Perhaps the best safeguards against it are domestic ties and the sense of responsibility and accountability. Very few instances of self-destruction occur among prudent hard-working heads of families who have insured their lives.

CHEWTON-ABBOT.

IN THREE CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER II.

Mrs Abbot drove home in her stately carriage thinking deeply. Her mind was tolerably easy. She knew there was little chance of a young man’s love living through years of absence and silence. Frank would go into the great world, and gaze on many a fair face during that time; till the beautiful face of Millicent Keene—for even Mrs Abbot could not gainsay the girl’s beauty—would gradually fade from his thoughts. He would taste the cup of ambition; he would see what power and station meant in the world, and would soon laugh to scorn his boyish dream. He would very quickly realise the difference between Abbot of Chewton Hall and plain Frank Abbot, who had to earn the bread to keep a wife, be she ever so charming. In fact, the thoughts of Mrs Abbot in her carriage and Miss Keene on her sofa were almost identical, although the words which expressed them differed.

Save for one thing, Mrs Abbot’s reflections were very comforting. The drawback was that she felt lowered in her own eyes. She had made a mistake, and had been treated with contumely. The victory was hers, but she had not won it herself. It was not her cleverness, but the girl’s right-mindedness which would bring about the separation. She blamed herself for having misread the girl’s character, and found her honest indignation at the imputation that her love for Frank was influenced by his possessions, mortifying to think of. Still, matters had turned out well. She would have the satisfaction of telling her husband that all was, or would be, at an end—that the hope of the Abbots would not marry nobody’s daughter. So busy was she with these thoughts, that she did not notice, when some three miles outside the smoky town of Bristol, a horseman approaching. Upon seeing him, her coachman gathered up the reins preparatory to stopping his horses; but, as the rider made a negative gesture, he simply touched his hat and drove on; whilst Frank Abbot and his mother passed, neither apparently noticing the other.

He was a handsome young fellow, and without a cent to his name might have given many a wealthy competitor long odds in the race for a girl’s heart. Tall and broad-shouldered—clever face, with deep-set eyes, large chin, and firm lips. He sat his horse gracefully, looking every inch a gentleman and an Englishman. Not, one would say, the man to win a woman’s love, and throw it aside at the bidding of father or mother. Not the man to do a thing hastily and repent the deed at his leisure. Rather, a man who, when once engaged in a pursuit, would follow it steadfastly to the end, whatever that end might be. It was scarcely right that Millicent Keene should allow fear to mingle with her grief at the approaching long separation from her lover. She should have looked into that handsome powerful face and understood that years would only mould the boy’s intention into the man’s determination.

Naturally, he was at the present moment rather down-hearted. His mother, having learned his secret, had refused him sympathy or aid. Too well he knew she was to be swayed neither by entreaty nor argument. He was now riding over to Clifton to reiterate his love to Millicent, and to consult as to future steps. As he passed the carriage, he wondered what had brought his mother in that direction. She had not mentioned her intention of going to the town, nor had she asked for his escort as usual. Could it be possible that she had driven over to visit Millicent? If so, he knew it boded ill; so, pricking on as fast as he could, he reached Clifton just as the girl had grown more calm and had washed away the traces of her recent tears.

Frank was terribly upset by her recital of the events of the morning. Although she did not repeat the whole conversation, he knew his mother well enough to be able to supply what Millicent passed lightly over. The proposed separation was a thunderstroke to him. In vain he entreated the girl to reconsider her determination. The promise was made, and her pride alone would insure her keeping it. Of course Frank vowed, after the usual manner of lovers, that love would grow stronger in absence; and as he thoroughly believed what he vowed, his vows were very consoling to the girl. He declared he also would go to Australia; marry Millicent, and take to sheep-farming, leaving the paternal acres to shift for themselves. All this and many other wild things the young fellow said; but the end was a sorrowful acquiescence in the separation, tempered by the firm resolve of claiming her in four years’ time in spite of any home opposition. Having settled this, the heir of the Abbots rode home in a state of open rebellion against his parents.

This they were quite prepared for, and had, like sensible people, made up their minds to endure his onslaught passively. His mother made no reply to his reproaches; his father took no notice of his implied threats; but both longed for the time to come when Miss Keene would sail to distant shores and the work of supplanting her might begin.

About one thing Frank was firm, and Millicent, perhaps, did not try to dissuade him from it. Until they were bound to part, he would see her every day. Mr and Mrs Abbot knew why his horse was ordered every morning, and whence that horse bore him at eve; but they said nothing.

The fatal day came soon enough. Frank went down to Plymouth to see the very last of his love; and the mighty steamship _Chimborazo_ bore away across the deep seas one of the sweetest and truest girls that ever won a man’s heart. A week after she sailed, Frank Abbot started on his continental tour.

‘I don’t care much about it,’ he said to himself, dolefully enough; ‘but it may help to make some of the time pass quicker. Four years, my darling! How long it seems!’

‘He will see the world,’ said Mrs Abbot, ‘and learn that a pretty face is not everything.’

‘He will fall in and out of love with a dozen girls before he returns,’ said Mr Abbot cynically.

It has been before stated that for many years there had been little change in either the possessions or the position of the Abbots of Chewton-Abbot; but, like other people, they had occasional windfalls. Some years after Mr Abbot succeeded to the estate, a new branch of a large railway passed through an outlying part of his land, and he who made it a boast of never selling or mortgaging a single acre, was compelled, by the demands of public convenience and commerce, to part with what the railway wanted. Of course he obtained a good round sum as compensation. This lay for a long time at his banker’s, waiting for any contiguous land which might come into the market. After a while, as no fields which he wished to add to his own were open to buyers, at his wife’s suggestion he sought for another and more profitable investment, and in an evil hour became the proprietor of fifty shares in a bank, whose failure has now become historical. He bought these shares at a premium; whilst he held them, they went to a much higher premium, but no doubt the same tenacity which led him to cling to his acres made him keep to the same investment. The high rate of interest also was very useful, and kept another horse or two in the stables.

We can all remember the astonishment we felt that black day when the news of the stoppage of that particular bank was flashed from end to end of the kingdom, and how, afterwards, the exposure of the reckless conduct of its directors, and of the rotten state in which the concern had been for years, sent a cold shudder down the back of every holder of bank stock.