92 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



too freely. As I have before said, the busy life men lead in the 

 metropolis, and the necessity for brain-stimulus, accelerate the facilis 

 descensus. Tlie disgrace of men in high position, impending ruin and 

 other facts, will often prompt suicide as a mode of relief. 



A form of suicide which figures largely in American statistics is, 

 jumping from an elevation. This may be chosen by the individual 

 as an effectual method, if he hesitates to select one, or may be the re- 

 sult of a momentary state of delirium produced by the surroundings. 

 This latter is a common form in some European cities that contain 

 high churches, monuments, or towers. I have myself experienced a 

 moi'bid desire of this character, after an ascent of the Mountain Cor- 

 covado, in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro. When looking over a steep 

 precipice upon this bay, two thousand or more feet below, I felt a 

 strange restlessness and distention of the blood-vessels, with an irre- 

 sistible desire to leap out into the clear air. This disappeared when I 

 looked upon some object near by. A medical friend relates a case in 

 his own experience. He went with an acquaintance up into a very 

 high, unfinislied public building. There was no evidence of insanity 

 in his acquaintance. When my friend's back was turned, his compan- 

 ion jumped far out into the air, and fell mangled to the sidewalk. In 

 France this form of suicide is a very common one, 45 individuals in 

 the year 1820 having precipitated themselves from heights. In the 

 year 1852, 16 men and 19 women chose this means of self-murder. So 

 prevalent were those suicides, that the authorities i-efused admission 

 to the Column Vendome. As I have before said, this method is not 

 an unusual one. In New York, between the years 1866 and 1872, 

 there were 21 victims. 



Dr. C. P. Russell, of New York, has informed me of a friend who 

 is to such an extent the subject of the impulse to throw himself from 

 heights, that he will never sleep upon the third or fourth floor of any 

 dwelling. 



The impulse to commit suicide with sharp-cutting instruments has 

 been more common in the European cities than those of this country, 

 and, in the majority of instances, suicide by these weapons has been 

 resorted to by insane subjects. 



A most important study in connection with this subject is the in- 

 fluence of the mode of life of the poorer classes. I allude more par- 

 ticularly to the tenement-house system to tlie colonization of many 

 thousand people in a limited space, much too small for them. They 

 are brought together so, that every vice becomes, to a great degree, 

 contagious. Bad examples are followed by the younger generation, 

 and it is much easier for a seed of sin to take root here than one of 

 virtue. Families of several nationalities 'are closely packed together 

 in front and rear houses. Ground and labor are so expensive, in the 

 larger cities particularly, that this mode of living is unavoidable. 



Despite the earnest efforts of an efficient health board in the city 



