LITERARY NOTICES. 



279 



that women liave hitherto been the suffer- 

 ers from a systematic oppression which has 

 made life a burden, while tyrannical men 

 have made existence pleasant by abusing the 

 weaker sex. Yet suicide is everywhere three 

 or four times more frequent among men than 

 among women. It is remarked that suicide 

 is more frequent among Spanish women 

 than those of any other country ; and, curi- 

 ously enough, that the proportion is gener- 

 ally found to decline with the greater pre- 

 ponderance of women in any country. Age 

 also powerfully influences suicide, and nearly 

 equally so in both sexes. The time of life 

 most favorable to suicide is from twenty to 

 fifty years of age ; but the greatest propor- 

 tion happens between forty and fifty. Di- 

 viding life into periods of ten years, it will 

 be found that the fifth decennial period 

 stands highest, and curves have been con- 

 structed to represent graphically to the eye 

 the rate of increase and decline. Fig. 2 

 illustrates this for four countries. 



Under the head of civil and social status, 

 Dr. Morselli considers the influence of celi- 

 bacy, marriage, widowhood, and the pres- 

 ence or absence of children. Those condi- 

 tions are very different and marked ia their 

 effects. In Italy, France, and Switzerland, 

 suicides are less numerous among sinle 

 than among married women. In Italy, if 

 the suicides among single women are rep- 

 resented at &0, those of married women will 

 be 100, and of widows 147 ; and in France, 

 if the probability of suicide among married 

 men is represented by 100, that of single 

 men will be 111-4, and of widowers, as- 

 tonishing to say, 250. Fig. 3 brings out 

 some of these results very strikingly. 



There are many other points of interest 

 in the volume which we can not even name. 

 The discussion of the philosophy of the 

 subject, its moral aspects, and under what 

 condition the suicidal practice is to be di- 

 minished in future, is clear, sagacious, and 

 instructive. The subject has always a mys- 

 terious fascination, but as here considered 

 it has also a rational and scientiBc interest 

 that will command the attention of all think- 

 ing people. 



In a chapter on the modes and instru- 

 ments of self-destruction, it is shown that 

 even here there is a predictable regu- 

 laritv. 



The Foreigner in China. By L. N. Wheel- 

 kk, 1). 1). With an Introduction by Pro- 

 fessor W. ('. Sawyer, Ph. 1). Chicago : S. 

 C. Grigga & Co. Pp. 268. Price, *1.25. 

 Dr. Whebleb has here given us an ex*. 



tremely readable little volume, treating va- 

 rious aspects of matters in the "Flowery 

 Kingdom." He was a Methodist missionary 

 in China from 1865 until 1873. He preached 

 to the natives in their own language, and 

 devoted himself actively to missionary work 

 through the preparation of many English 

 and Chinese publications. His familiarity 

 with the native written and spoken language 

 gave him advantages in studying the char- 

 acter of that people, of which he seems to 

 have well availed himself. There are more 

 candor and fairness in his pages than might 

 be expected of one, under the powerful bias 

 of religious partisanship, who goes to a dis- 

 tant country for the avowed purpose of 

 overturning its system of faith. His chap- 

 ters on Chinese history, diplomatic inter- 

 course, and on the origin and effect of the 

 various wars external and internal in 

 which the empire has been involved in mod- 

 ern times, are most interesting and instruc- 

 tive. As between the peaceable pagans, 

 who are content to be let alone, and the ag- 

 gressive Christian nations, who have been 

 bent upon opening the Celestial Kingdom 

 to the benefits of civilization, Dr. Wheeler 

 does not fail to recognize that the heathen 

 have much the better showing. After giv- 

 ing an account of the Chinese policy, and 

 the wars and their results, in the first eight 

 chapters, the author passes to the subject 

 of the religious conversion of the Chinese 

 people. An account of the Koman Catholic 

 missions is followed by that of the Protes- 

 tant missions, and a discussion of the hin- 

 drances to evangelism, after which he de- 

 votes a chapter to proving that Protestant 

 missions are not a failure. He points out 

 the great difficulties of the work, and gets 

 a standard of what constitutes success in 

 dealing with such a nation by showing that 

 all other efforts to influence the Chinese 

 diplomatic, commercial, and military have 

 been anything but successful. Judged " by 

 the same tests as we apply to more mundane 

 undertakings," missionary work, he thinks, 

 is not to be pronounced a failure. Hut Dr. 

 Wheeler's ideas of success are certainly 



