A STUDY OF SUICIDE. 311 



first prominent symptom of insanity, and frequently the intensity 

 of the suicidal tendency subsides with the progress of the disease. 

 All who know anything about the insane will admit that lunatics 

 very frequently possess extraordinary cunning in concealing their 

 lunacy, and that the malady, in many cases, is successfully hidden 

 from friends and acquaintances until some remarkable departure 

 from the ordinary ways of life brings it to light. A case in point 

 is that of Hood Alston, who committed suicide in New Orleans in 

 the early part of 1879, after writing a full explanation of why he 

 wished to die. He had been an able writer for the newspapers in 

 many of the large cities, his habits had been those of a gentleman, 

 and his death, in the absence of the letter which he left, would 

 have been inexplicable. He was in the Interior Department at 

 Washington, and was afterward appointed the secretary of a 

 mining company in California. He was married and had every 

 requisite for domestic happiness. "Last November," he wrote, 

 " I became possessed of an impulse to kill my friends. I could 

 hardly resist an opportunity. The desire would be but for a mo- 

 ment and then pass away. An infant was born to us two months 

 ago. I loved it, was proud of it. When it first looked upon me 

 the desire seized me to prey upon its young life. My friends were 

 ignorant of my mental condition. I imparted it to no one, not 

 even to my darling wife. I die that others may live." Dr. Wins- 

 low relates a singular case of a man who was heard to exclaim : 

 " Do, for God's sake, get me confined, for if I am at liberty I shall 

 destroy myself and wife ; I shall do it unless all means of destruc- 

 tion are removed, and therefore do have me put under restraint. 

 Something above tells me I shall do it, and I shall." Mr. Cheva- 

 lier also tells us of a young lady of delicate constitution, although 

 she had never given any symptoms of mental derangement, who 

 suddenly started up from the tea-table and rushed to the window, 

 out of which she endeavored to throw herself. It was with great 

 difficulty that she was prevented from accomplishing her design. 

 She remained insane during the rest of her life, which he adds, 

 "was fortunately not long protracted." Such cases illustrating 

 the frequency and intensity of the suicidal and homicidal pro- 

 pensity abound in every work on mental disease and are found in 

 every asylum. But, on the other hand, there are undoubtedly 

 many cases of suicide in which the hypothesis of insanity is un- 

 tenable. Cato stabbed himself rather than live under the des- 

 potic reign of Caesar ; Themistocles poisoned himself rather than 

 lead the Persians against his countrymen ; Zeno, when ninety- 

 eight, hung himself because he had put his finger out of joint ; 

 and Hannibal and Mithridates poisoned themselves to escape be- 

 ing taken prisoners. When we search Scripture we find that Saul, 

 rather than fall into the hands of the Philistines, commanded his 



