CHAPTER XI.

URBAN AND RURAL LIFE; EMPLOYMENT; ARMY, NAVY, AND PRISON LIFE.

The suicide rate of any great city is found to be higher than the rate of the rural district around it, and this statement is true of every country. Many causes contribute to this increased rate, besides the mere density of population, which however may be considered to have of itself an influence to make suicide more frequent.

Statistics do not shew that the proportion increases with the total population of the urban district; in London, for example, although the total population is so much greater than that of Brussels, yet the suicide rate is much lower.

Urban life only tends to exaggerate the general inclination of a people; as Morselli puts it,─“the suicide rate is high in the rural districts when it is so in the towns; in the latter, on the contrary, it becomes lower in proportion to the general average.”

Town life is powerful to modify the human will, and the feelings and acts of mankind, but it will not neutralise all the other social and individual influences.

The most important difficulty in making correct estimates of the suicide rates of cities, is the uncertainty as to where the line should be drawn to separate the town from the country; for it is obvious that if these have different rates, the proportion for the town may be rendered high or low accordingly, whether the line be drawn through the suburbs, or beyond the farthest of them. Cities more than villages contain the two extreme states of riches and poverty, both of which tend to a voluntary death: in cities the struggle for existence is much sharper than it is amid the scattered population of villages, and together with this point is the collateral one of mental strain and excitement existing when not required for merely procuring a living.

The ratio of suicides in several cities, calculated in the year 1883, is here given, with reference to a million of inhabitants:─Paris, 402; Copenhagen, 302; Stockholm, 354; Naples, 34; Rome, 74; London, 87; Vienna, 287; Brussels, 271; Berlin, 170; St. Petersburgh, 206; and New York, 144.

In London, Buckle tells us, there has always been a higher rate than in the rest of England. During─

1846-50 they were 107 per million } England, 66 1856-61 „ 100 „ } „ 65 1861-70 „ 88 „ } „ 66 1872-76 „ 86 „ } „ 69

These figures show about one-third more suicide in London than the country. The same proportion holds good at the present time.

The Middlesex portion of London has always had a higher percentage than either the Kent or Surrey portions.

In Berlin the suicide rate was stationary in 1860-1872; indeed, decreasing in 1870-1872, but a large rate compared to the country around; in 1860 the relative numbers were 160 for the city to 100 in the country.

Legoyt calculates the suicide rate of the United States as 32 per million; and New York City, for the year 1876, as 142 per million.

EMPLOYMENT.

With regard to the business of one’s life, it has been noticed that professions and trades, which by habits, physical and mental, bring women near to men, often tend to raise in an extraordinary degree the inclination of women to kill themselves.

It is a matter of the greatest difficulty to procure statistics sufficiently reliable of the numbers of each profession and trade, to couple with the numbers of known suicides of each trade and profession, for the purpose of obtaining a “professional suicide rate.”

Italian statistics show that the rates are higher in those trades which are concerned with luxuries, and lower in those whose products command a more regular market, such as are necessaries.

Goldsmiths, jewellers, makers of arms, scientific instruments, toilet necessaries, musical instruments, &c., give a higher rate than that of builders, weavers, spinners, tailors, glovers, &c.

Nuns, convent maids, and lay sisters, all numerous classes in Italy, give very few suicides.

In the higher walks of education the rates are all higher. Men of science, doctors, lawyers, military men, and the governing officials, all are very prone to self-destruction.

In those counties of France where there is the greatest attention paid to trade, agriculture, and commerce, the suicide rate is the highest; in counties where the development of business is slight the rate is lower.

And, further, it is almost universally true that the states that have most perfect railway systems are those which have the largest average of suicide.

Now, all countries having a largely developed trade are liable to commercial depressions; these are constantly followed by waves of increased lunacy and more numerous suicides; and note that these effects follow not immediately on a crisis, but after a little interval.

At the crisis the majority of minds are strung up to the needed effort: it is the loosening of the tension that upsets the mental equilibrium; the exhaustion following prolonged exertion. Similar to these commercial waves are the effects of war, increased prices and taxation; it was not the bad years of the Crimean War that gave the heaviest voluntary death rate, but the two years after.

In Austria the war of 1858-9 was effectual in the increased rates of 1860-61.

In France suicides and lunatics were more numerous in 1872 and 1873, not in the years of the war, 1870 and 1871.

Legoyt gives the following analysis of suicides: Middle classes and outcasts, 596 per million; liberal professions, 218; industrial classes, 128; tillers of the soil, 90 per million.

I subjoin a Table, borrowed from Lisle, shewing the employment in more than 50,000 cases of suicide in France.

TABLE of 52,126 French Suicides arranged according to Occupation.

────────────────────────────────────┬────────┬────────┬─────── ──── │ Male. │ Female.│ TOTAL. ────────────────────────────────────┼────────┼────────┼─────── I.─Of SLIGHT EDUCATION: │ │ │ Shepherds │ 276 │ 32 │ 308 Woodcutters, charcoal burners │ 54 │ 6 │ 60 Agricultural labourers │ 12,179 │ 3,681 │ 15,860 Beggars and vagabonds │ 335 │ 115 │ 450 Prostitutes │ 0 │ 53 │ 53 Mechanics in Wood │ 1,729 │ 72 │ 1,801 „ „ Leather │ 377 │ 27 │ 404 „ „ Iron │ 1,437 │ 64 │ 1,501 „ „ Cotton, Silk │ 1,339 │ 463 │ 1,802 „ „ Stone │ 1,079 │ 48 │ 1,127 Other mechanics │ 541 │ 91 │ 632 Porters, Commissionaires │ 368 │ 6 │ 374 Sailors │ 311 │ 9 │ 320 Drivers of carriages, vans │ 468 │ 7 │ 475 Domestic servants │ 1,270 │ 1,204 │ 2,474 │ │ │ II.─Of BETTER EDUCATION: │ │ │ Bakers, confectioners │ 373 │ 29 │ 402 Butchers │ 265 │ 24 │ 289 Furniture dealers │ 259 │ 28 │ 287 Hatters │ 102 │ 21 │ 123 Shoemakers │ 639 │ 46 │ 685 Hairdressers │ 164 │ 8 │ 172 Tailors │ 644 │ 780 │ 1,424 Laundry workers │ 73 │ 221 │ 294 General shopkeepers │ 1,233 │ 289 │ 1,522 „ travelling dealers │ 314 │ 62 │ 376 Inn-keepers │ 741 │ 159 │ 900 │ │ │ III.─Of SUPERIOR EDUCATION: │ │ │ Wholesale dealers, bankers │ 382 │ 12 │ 394 Merchants’ clerks │ 441 │ 27 │ 468 Artists │ 194 │ 25 │ 219 Clerks and copyists │ 276 │ 2 │ 278 Students │ 118 │ 2 │ 120 Public officials │ 1,187 │ 23 │ 1,210 Professors and teachers │ 169 │ 32 │ 201 Military and Navy men │ 2,826 │ 4 │ 2,830 Lawyers and doctors, &c. │ 427 │ 16 │ 443 Persons owning property │ 2,693 │ 808 │ 3,501 │ │ │ IV.─ │ │ │ Without business │ 1,106 │ 2,012 │ 3,118 Unknown employment │ 2,741 │ 2,447 │ 5,188 ├────────┼────────┼─────── │ 39,302 │ 12,824 │ 52,126 ────────────────────────────────────┴────────┴────────┴───────

MILITARY AND NAVAL LIFE.

It is an almost universal truth that the suicide rate of any state is smaller than the rate observed in the men composing the Army and Navy of the same country.

This point was first brought prominently into notice about twenty years ago with respect to our English soldiers; Dr. Millar pointed out that in 1862 the rate was 278 per million (estimated at per million), and in 1871 at 400 per million, and at the present time it is about triple the rate for ordinary Englishmen of between 20 and 30 years of age. In the Italian army at the present time the rate is treble that of ordinary Italians between 20 and 30 years of age.

The suicidal tendency of an army is materially increased by foreign service; so that in the English Army, when the number was 339 per million at home, in India the numbers were 468. And it has been found that there is a higher percentage among soldiers of long service; three times the amount is found among soldiers of over 14 years’ service than is found among those of under 3 years’ service.

Dr. Millar also observed that there were twice as many voluntary deaths in the Cavalry as in the Infantry.

In Saxony the soldier’s rate was 640 per million, while the civilian’s rate was 368; in Prussia, 419 to 168; in Sweden, 450 to 101; in Austria, 442 to 144; in Wurtemburg, 320 to 170; in Belgium, 662 to 90; in France, 510 to 216.

In the Austrian, Italian, and French armies the officers have a rate double that of the men; non-commissioned officers have the highest rate.

The high military rate seems to spread, too, among civilians in their neighbourhood; some of the highest civilian rates are found on the Austrian and Prussian military frontiers, where there is constantly a military establishment retained as a guard.

Even at the present time in our Navy the rate is much higher than among civilians. From a Report on the Health of the Navy, 1883, I find there were among 43,350 officers and men, 255 deaths; 176 from disease, 79 from injury, and 6 suicides. This gives a death-rate of only 5·88 per thousand, with a suicide rate of 138·5 per million.

PRISON LIFE.

Prisoners have a higher suicide rate than civilians at liberty, especially if we consider attempts at suicide.

It is usual to make a distinction between convicts whose fate is settled, and prisoners arrested, and untried, or at least not convicted. For instance, Morselli gives for

England: Prisoners, 1,100; Convicts, 350, France: „ 750; „ 80,

as the relative rates of voluntary death.

Female prisoners give a very high rate in Denmark and Italy, and suicides of females are more numerous than those of males in the prisons of these two states.

More than half of Prisoner Suicides are of men and women convicted of crimes against the person.

The longer a prisoner remains in a convict prison, the less is the tendency to suicide; most prisoners become used to the mode of life under a year of confinement.

Solitary confinement produces a greater suicide tendency than associated imprisonment, and the systems of mixed prisoners.

From a return of English local prisons, just issued, I find there were in 1883, only ten cases of suicide, of whom only one was a female. This return did not include the great convict establishments; with respect to which I may add that successful attempts at self-destruction are very rare, and statistics are not directly available.

In the prisons of Italy, the frequency of suicide is greatest in prisoners of between twenty-one and thirty years; that is at an earlier age than among people at large; it is found to be more often attempted by countrymen than by town dwellers; another reversal of data.

Nearly half of all cases occur in the first year of confinement. Two-thirds of the prison suicides had always been reported as “well conducted.”

Only twenty-three per cent. of the cases occurred in criminals having a shorter sentence than three years.

So far as I can learn, all these points are, broadly speaking, equally true with regard to prisons in England.