SUICIDE 



SUKKUR 



791 



professions. Hanging is the favourite method in 

 most European countries, except Italy, where 

 drowning and shooting are most common. Suicide 

 is much more common among men than among 

 women, being in the proportion of 3 or 4 to 1 ; 

 and this applies to all countries and races. As to 

 age, ' suicide augments in the two sexes in direct 

 ratio with age,' at least up to the seventieth year ; 

 there are instances of suicide at five years of age, 

 and also over ninety. The critical periods of life, 

 adolescence, the climacteric, pregnancy, partur- 

 ition, nursing, and senility all increase the tend- 

 ency to suicide, just as they increase the tendency 

 to insanity. Suicide in all civilised countries is 

 becoming more common year by year. The soli- 

 tary system in prisons is found to increase the 

 number of suicides as compared with the older 

 system of associating prisoners together. Physical 

 diseases, notably those that are very painful and 

 those that are slow and chronic, increase the num- 

 ber of suicides. The increased consumption of 

 alcohol, especially spirits, increases the suicides of 

 any country, they having doubled from this cause 

 in France from 1849 to 1876. The religion of a 

 people seems to exercise a marked influence on the 

 number of suicides. In states where the Roman 

 Catholic form of religion prevails there are 58 

 suicides per million of the population ; in Pro- 

 testant states there are 190 per million, and in 

 countries where the Greek Church is dominant only 

 40 per million. But the social circumstances of 

 each country need to be taken into consideration 

 to correct in some degree the conclusions derived 

 from such religious statistics, the Protestant states 

 being on the whole the most advancing and the 

 most modern in spirit, and a higher standard of 

 general culture being always accompanied by a 

 larger number of suicides. No doubt it takes a 

 hignly developed brain that has been cultured to 

 feel keenly, and keen feeling is the basis of painful 

 emotion. Suicide is most common among the 

 widowed and least frequent among the married. 

 The military profession furnishes much the largest 

 proportion of suicides in all countries, being usually 

 twice or thrice that of any other calling, and in 

 Italy fourteen times larger than the average ; 

 next comes domestic service ; next come the 

 liberal professions. ' The proportion of suicides in 

 all Europe is greater among the condensed popula- 

 tion of urban centres than amongst the more 

 scattered inhabitants of the country' (Morselli). 

 But the proportion is not precisely according to the 

 density of population. 'Denmark stands highest 

 in Europe (285 per million of population), Ger- 

 many, north and south, next (from 150 to 165), 

 Norway and Sweden next ( 128), Great Britain, her 

 colonies, and the United States at 70 per million. 



Amongst notable suicides (omitting cases re- 

 ferred to in Scripture) may be mentioned : 



Sappho B.C. 7th c. 



Empedocles (q.v.) 435 



Demosthenes 322 



Hannibal 183 



Mithridates 3 



Cato the Younger 46 



Brutus and Cassius 4 



Mark Antony 80 



Cleopatra 8 



Nero" *< 



Otho 8 



Miitiand of Lethington . . . 1573 



Sir John Suckling (?) 1642 



Robert Burton (?) 1649 



Vatel the cook 1671 



Erlof Eeaex 1683 



Blount the Deist 1693 



Eustace Budgell. 1737 



Chatterton 1770 



Clive 1774 



Rousseau (?) 1778 



M. Roland 1793 



Pichegru 1804 



Tannahill 1810 



Berthier. 1815 



Romilly 1818 



Castlereagh 1822 



Haydon 1846 



Hugh Miller 1856 



Admiral Fitzroy 1865 



Prevost-Paradol 1870 



E. M. Ward, painter 1879 



Fred. Archer 1886 



Louis II. of Bavaria 1886 



Crown-prince of Austria . .1889 



Pigott 1889 



Balmaceda 1891 



Boulanger 1891 



See Forbes Winslow, The Anatomy of Suicide (1840) ; 

 French works by De Boismont, Bertrand, Mine, de Stael, 

 Legoyt (1881), Gaviason (1885) ; Italian works by Jlor- 



selli (1880; Eng. trans. 1881), Carrieri (1883), Ferri 

 ( 1884 ) ; O'Dea, Suicide : Studies on its Philosophy, its 

 Causes, and its Prevention ( New York, 1882 ) ; Westcott, 

 Suicide : its History, Literature, and Jurisprudence 

 ( with bibliography, 1885 ) ; and some thirty other works 

 cited in Notes and Queries, June 1890. p. 489. Also the 

 articles INSANITY, EUTHANASIA, HABI-KARI, and SUTTEE. 

 The suicide of Scorpions (q.v.) and snakes, often asserted, 

 has been proved to be impossible. 



Sn'Ulii', a family of even-toed, non-ruminant 

 Ungulates, including pigs, hogs, or boars, the 

 Babiroussa, and the wart-hogs (Phacochcerus). 

 The snout is mobile but truncated ; the feet 

 have four toes, of which two reach the ground ; 

 the upper canine teeth curve more or less outwards 

 or upwards ; the molars bear rounded tubercles ; 

 the stomach is almost simple. In distribution they 

 are entirely confined to the Old World. 



Sllidas, the reputed author of a Lexicon, though 

 when he lived, or who he was, or whether he was 

 even called Suidas, no one can say ; but it is cus- 

 tomary to place him about the 10th or llth century. 

 The Lexicon bears unmistakable evidence of hav- 

 ing gone through many hands ; and thougli we can 

 fix the date when several of the articles must have 

 been written, it is impossible to ascertain whether 

 they are the composition of the first compiler 

 or of a later editor. The work is a sort of cyclo- 

 paedia, giving an explanation of words, and notices 

 of persons, places, &c., in alphabetical order. It 

 possesses almost no literary or critical merit, but is 

 valuable for its numerous extracts from ancient 

 writers, whose works in many cases have perished. 

 The first edition appeared at Milan (1499) ; since 

 then the best editions have been those of Kiister 

 (3 vols. 1705), Gaisford (3 vols. Oxf. 1834), Bern- 

 hardy (2 vols. Halle, 1834), and I. Bekker ( 1854). 



Sui Juris, in the Roman law, the condition of 

 a person not subject to the Patria Potestas (see 

 FAMILY, Vol. IV. p. 542). The paterfamilias was 

 the only member of a family who was sui juris, all 

 the rest being alieni juris, including sons, un- 

 married daughters, the wife, and the wives and 

 children of the sons of the paterfamilias. A son or 

 unmarried daughter became sui juris on the death 

 of the paterfamilias. In his father's lifetime a son 

 could only become sui juris by emancipation. 



Suir, a river of Ireland, flowing 85 miles south- 

 ward and eastward, chiefly along the boundary of 

 the counties of Tipperary, Waterford, Kilkenny, 

 and Wexfprd, past Clonmel, Carrick, and Water- 

 ford, till it meets the Barrow, and immediately 

 afterwards falls into Waterford Haven. It is navi- 

 gable by barges as far as Clonmel. 



Suite, a series of dances arranged for instru- 

 ments in the same or relative keys, and usually 

 preceded by a prelude. 



Siikhum Kale, a fortified seaport town of 

 the Caucasus, on the east coast of the Black 

 Sea, 70 miles N. by W. of Poti. It stands on the 

 site of the ancient Milesian colony of Dioscurias, 

 and since 1809 has been alternately in the hands of 

 the Turks and the Russians ; the latter have held 

 it since 1877. Pop. 1947. 



Sllkklir, a town on the right bank of the 

 Indus, 28 miles by rail SE. of Shikarpur ; it is 

 connected by rail also with Karachi (Kurrachee), 

 and is the terminus of the Bolan Pass Railway to 

 Afghanistan. The river is crossed by a magnificent 

 cantilever bridge (1889), or rather by two bridges 

 (one with a span of 820 feet), resting upon the 

 fortified island of Bukkur in the middle of the 

 channel. New Sukkur, which grew up after the 

 British occupied (1839) the fort on Bukkur, has 

 considerable trade in silk, cloth, cotton, wool, 

 opium, saltpetre, sugar, brass utensils, piece- 

 goods, metals, wines and spirits. Pop. (1834) 



