90 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The cause for the suicide of the latter was remarkable. She was 

 detected iu a theft of fifty cents, by her mother, and, to seek escape 

 from her shame, took Paris-green. The months in which suicide was 

 most prevalent were those of summer. In August, 1870, there were 

 15 suicides, while in December only 7. In June, the following year, 

 there were 14, and July of 1872 shows 20, and December only 4. 



In regard to occupation, clerks commit suicide the most frequent- 

 ly, about 34 in 1870, 1871, and 1872, and but 10 laborers in the same 

 time. The percentage of laborers abroad is greater than any other. 

 The mode of suicide most often employed in the city of New York is 

 that of poisoning 212 out of nearly 600 persons have died from some 

 form of poisoning. The preference seems to be for arsenic; usually 

 its commonest form Paris-green. In 1S72, of 50 poisoning cases, 22 

 took Paris-green ; the others chose either opium, carbolic acid, or 

 other irritants. In 1871, 14 took Paris-green. Nearly all of the sui- 

 cides chose violent and painful poisons, there being but few excep- 

 tions. One individual ended his days by hydrate of chloral ; the 

 other, a druggist, with prussic acid. Three took chloroform. Shoot- 

 ing ended the lives of 147 persons; 135 hung themselves. In only 

 one or two instances was any ingenuity shown in tlie suicides : one of 

 these individuals first shot himself, and then jumped out of the win- 

 dow ; the other threw himself in front of an advancing locomotive. 

 In London, hanging seems to have been the method most in vogue, 

 for, in the year 1858, 56 persons perished in this way. 



A. Brierre de Boismont, iu his "Rccherches Medico-Legale sur 

 Suicide," Paris, 1859, collected 4,595 cases, carbonic-acid gas and 

 drowning being the favorite modes for self-murder with men, and 

 strangulation with women. Of 463 suicides occurring in the year 

 1853, 92 men perished by carbonic-acid gas, 93 by drowning, and 131 

 women died by strangulation. The more ancient statistics show that 

 voluntary starvation was a common form of suicide in the beginning 

 of this century. The motive for suicide in the reported cases was 

 extremely difficult to discover. Of the 463 cases in Paris in 1853, 

 insanity produced the suicide of 53 men, 37 women ; drunkenness, 48 

 men, 14 women; misery and grief, 20 men, 8 women ; disappointed 

 love, 28 men, 20 women ; shame, 18 men, 9 women ; domestic trouble, 

 18 men, 15 women ; weariness of life, 20 men, 7 women; disease, 27 

 men, 19 women ; fear of the law, 16 men, 2 women ; ill-luck, 23 men, 

 14 women ; trouble with parents, 5 men, 5 women ; loss of situation, 

 8 men ; loss of parents, 1 woman. By this table, it will be seen that 

 insanity causes the largest number of suicides, both of men and 

 women ; drunkenness comes next, and disease third. 



In regard to the form of suicide with fire-arms, Boismont shows, 

 by a cai'efully-arranged table, that the greatest number shoot them- 

 selves in the mouth, seventy-five per cent, choosing this means. 



Out of 368 cases, 234 shot themselves in the mouth, 71 in the ab- 



