354 Moral Statistics of France. 



extremes, range the other 84 departments ; the mean for the whole of 

 France is as 1 to 18,320 of the population. There are 27 departments in 

 which the proportion is greater; 59 in which it is less. 



The department of the Seine, comprising the capital, in which 1-6 of 

 the illegitimate births occur, exhibits a similar proportion in respect to 

 suicides. In this one department there occur as many suicides as in 32 

 departments of the south and centre. 



As a general fact, it is very remarkable that in the line of approach to 

 Paris from every quarter, the number of suicides regularly increases as we 

 get nearer to the capital. Something of the same kind is observed in the 

 vicinity of Marseilles, which seems to stand relatively to Provence and 

 Daii])hiny, in much the same position as Paris to the rest of France.* 



The mixture of rudeness and irascibilitj-, which in the southern provinces 

 causes so many sudden broils, might be supposed to favour the commission 

 of suicide. Facts, however, prove that the departments in which personal 

 outrages are most frequent, are exactly those in which suicides are the 

 fewest, and vice versa. 



M. G. offers some interesting reflections on the predominating motives 

 to suicide, and suggests an analysis of the papers so generally left by the 

 unhappy victims, as a means of estimating the relative frequency or degree 

 of activity of the causes of self-murder. He gives a sketch of such an 

 analysis of 100 documents in the archives of the Prefecture of Police, but 

 we cannot enter into the details. One of the inducements to suicide re- 

 corded in his table, appears not a little singular, — the desire to obtain the 

 prayers of the church: but apparent inconsistencies of this kind are more 

 frequent than we might anticipate. Many suicides sign themselves with 

 the cross before terminating their existence ; others throw themselves on 

 their knees and make their prayers, or adorn themselves with beads, and 

 peruse books of devotion. 



Tliough nothing can appear more accidental and uncertain than the 

 mode that will be chosen by a person about to terminate his life, it will be 



* As about 1-3 of the population of Paris consists oi strangers, it is interesting to 

 know in what proportions the natives and inhabitants of the different departments 

 become suicides in that city. A curious table is given by M. G. to elucidate this 

 point, and it is remarkable that of 1000 suicides in Paris, the proportions for the 12 

 departments which rank fi"st in the Parisian list, nearly correspond with those as- 

 signed to them when compared with the country at large. The distribution of Pari- 

 sian suicides among the five regions gives a still more striking result. Of ICOO sui- 

 cides committed in Paris, there belong to the 



North .... 505 In this table the five regions maintain the same order (ex- 

 East 210 cepting only the transposition of the west and south) as in the 



West^^ ^65 general table. No. 8, for the whole kingdom. The northern 



South ' .... 52 region (after taking out the department of the Seine) still pro- 



duces more than half the total number. 



1000 



