prevent some better man from doing it more justice. This piece of bread which I lament, is all that I have to support myself and family - even this I do not merit. I eat it in sin, and yet I live! Killing thought! which a conscience hitherto uncorrupted inspires. I have a wife, also, and my child reproaches me with its existence. But, do you not know, my dear friends, that if my unhappy life is not speedily ended, my weak head will require all your care, and I shall become a burthen rather than an assistance to you. It is better I yield myself a timely sacrifice to misfortune, than, by permitting the delusion to continue longer, I consume the last farthing of my wife's inheritance. It is the duty of every one to do that which his situation requires, reason commands, religion approves. My life, such as it is, is a mere animal life, devoid of reason: a life, which, in my opinion, stands in opposition to duty, is moral death, and worse than that which is natural. In favour of the few whose lives I cannot render happy, it is at least my duty not to become an oppression. I ought to relieve them from a weight which, sooner or later, cannot fail to crush them." The unfortunate writer of this rhapsody, evidently founded on an indulgence in metaphysical sophisms, sent his wife to church on a Sunday, and then took a pair of scissors, and cut his throat without killing himself; he then opened the arteries of the wrist, and again failed in destroying himself; he staggered to the window, and saw his wife returning home; upon which he seized a knife used for killing deer, and stabbed himself to the heart. He was a man of understanding, and a lively wit, possessing a great deal of theoretical learning. His heart was incorruptibly honest. The office he held was that of assistant judge at Insterberg. This man's mother had once been deranged circumstance that might have warranted the verdict of insanity.— Otherwise there would have been no grounds for such conclusion. a Richard Smith had been in comfortable, if not in affluent circumstances; but, from various misfortunes was reduced to extreme poverty, and his wretchedness was shared by his wife Bridget and a little boy. The unfortunate man at last prevailed upon his wife to consent to their own destruction, and to that of their child. They first killed the boy; and, after an affectionate adieu, hung themselves to the bedposts. This desperate couple, who had murdered their offspring, wrote to a friend to commend their dog and cat to his care!* The verdict in this case should have been poverty, but certainly not insanity. A merchant, aged 32, who had lost his fortune, and was left without resources, determined to starve himself to death. For four days he wandered about the country, and then dug a pit, in which he remained eighteen days, when he was found alive, but in a state of insensibility, and expired upon taking a little warm broth. The following journal, written with a pencil, was found about him : "The generous philanthropist who shall find my corpse, is requested to give it a burial, and to keep, as a reward for his trouble, my clothes, The following epitaph was found with their letter :-- Dust, ashes, nought else is within this tomb. We "were, but are not ;" think no more of us; my purse, my knife, and my pocket-book. I am not a suicide, but I have perished from hunger. Some perverse men have deprived me of a considerable fortune; and I do not wish to become a burthen to my friends. It is useless to open my body, since I declare that I die of starvation.-16th September. What a night have I passed! it has rained incessantly. I am am cold. -17th. The length of the night, and the scantiness of my clothing, make me feel the cold most bitterly, and I suffer dreadfully.-18th. The cold and rain have obliged me to walk. My steps were feeble, and thirst compelled me to lick up some water which was dropping from some mushrooms. Oh! how the water was good!-19th. My stomach is in a most turbulent state, and hunger, but more especially thirst, become most horrible. It has not rained for three days. If I could but lick a few drops of water from the mushrooms!-20th. I have been distracted with thirst, and with much difficulty I dragged myself to a public house to procure a bottle of beer; but my burning thirst was not quenched. In the evening I went to fetch a little water at a pump near the public-house. -22. Yesterday, the 21st, I could scarcely move, or hold my pencil; Thirst obliged me to go again to the pump. The water was very cold. I rejected it; and had convulsions until evening: nevertheless I returned to the pump.-23rd. My legs seem dead. For these last three days I have not been able to go to the pump. My weakness is so great that I have only been able this day to guide my pencil.-26th. I have not been able to stir. It has rained. My clothes are drenched. No one could believe the agony that I endure. During the rain some drops fell into my mouth, but did not relieve my thirst. Yesterday a shepherd passed by me. I saluted him, and he returned the salutation. It is with much regret that I quit the world; but I have been driven to death by misery. Oh, my father, forgive me! He knows not what he is doing. Convulsions prevent-me-from writing-I feel it time.-29th September, 1818." The verdict in this is the - last - case should also have been poverty and despair.. Matthew Lovat, a shoemaker in Venice, labouring under erroneous religious ideas, emasculated, and then resolved to crucify himself. For three days he pondered on the desperate project; and, having crowned himself with thorns, after stripping off his clothes, he bound a handkerchief round his waist, and sat down on a cross that he had constructed, fixing each of his feet on a ledge he had made for that purpose, and then transfixing them with a nail five inches in length, which he firmly hammered into the wood. He then ran both his hands through sharp nails fixed in the cross for that purpose; but, before he nailed the left hand he inflicted a deep wound with a knife in his left side. After this operation, by means of ropes, he contrived to move out of the window, suspended on his cross. The next day he was found in this position. His right hand had been detached from the cross when he was taken down, and carried to the hospital. He recovered, but was sent to a lunatic asylum. He soon died, exhausted by constant endeavours to fast, and by pulmonary consumption. Had this man died, the verdict should certainly have been insanity, brought on by religious delusions. A clergyman, of a very absent character, swallowed a small seal of a letter. One of his friends, who was by, jocosely observed, "Why, man, you have sealed up your bowels." The idea of such a condition so terrified him, that he actually starved himself to death. In the year 1770, a young man of Lyons was deeply enamoured of a beautiful girl of a superior condition of life, whose hand had been refused him by her family. The two lovers formed a resolution to destroy each other; the more readily, as he laboured under an aneurism, which was considered incurable. The young lady was armed with a pair of pistols and two daggers. Strange to say, this desperate deed was imitated by several disappointed lovers in a very short space of time! The ingenuity of suicides is sometimes surprising. A blacksmith at Geneva made a bellows subservient to his purpose. He first loaded an old gun-b -barrel with a brace of bullets, and putting one end in the fire of his forge, tied a string to the handle of his bellows, by the pulling of which he could make them play whilst he was at a convenient distance. Kneeling down, he placed his head near the mouth of the barrel; and moving the bellows by means of the string, they blew up the fire, he keeping his head with astonishing firmness and horrible deliberation in that position, till the further end of the barrel was so heated as to kindle the powder, whose explosion instantly drove the bullets through his brain. Jeremiah Clark, organist of St. Paul's, being disappointed in love, determined to destroy himself; and, alighting from his horse, went into a field, in a corner of which was a pond and some trees, when he began to debate in his mind whether he should end his days by hanging or by drowning. Not being able to resolve the knotty question, he left it to the decision of chance, and tossed up a halfpenny; but the coin, falling on some mud, stuck sideways in the ground. Though the decree of chance did not answer his expectations, still it seemed to ordain that neither hanging nor drowning was advisable. He therefore quietly remounted his horse, rode to London, and blew out his brains. A Bishop of Grenoble afforded another instance of suicidal ingenuity. He took a rod, on which his bed-curtains hung, and suspended it across by a stick, which communicated with the trigger of his fowling-piece. He then sat quietly down, with his feet hanging over the rod, and placing the muzzle of the gun in his mouth, held it fast. He then had nothing more to do than to drop his legs upon the rod, when the gun went off, and three bullets entered his brain. The fortitude which suicides display is amazing. A servant girl of the Dean of , who had always borne a most excellent character, was accused by the family of theft. She immediately repaired to the wash-house, immersed her head in a pail of water, and was found dead in that position. What must have been the courage of this poor creature, who, when writhing under the lash of a false accusation, kept her head under water despite the horrible sense of suffocation that must have come on! In the year 1789 a strange act of suicide was committed by a French gentleman in Greenwich Park. After paying his bill at the Ship Tavern, he called on the Governor of the Hospital, Sir Hugh Palliser, and offered him a sum of money to be distributed to the inmates, which the Governor thought proper to decline. He then distributed about two hundred pounds in Greenwich in the most absurd manner amongst schoolboys; to one of whom he gave his watch, after which he blew out his brains, leaving the following strange document : "Two hours after mid-day, three hours before my death. "I think it, sir, my duty to leave you these lines, to prevent in quiries, and solicit your pardon for this trouble, and the appropriation of a small portion of ground to bury me. The indifference of my parents, the dislike I had to the profession of an impostor, the perfidy of one tenderly beloved, are the most powerful motives for a sensible soul to prejudge itself. and prefer a grateful dissolution, better or worse. It is not that I was difficult to please, or wanted assistance; if I had preserved my tender love, which Heaven seems to have destined to some man to attach him to life, and to make him an object of affection, I had not then looked upon this death without trembling, which I now contemplate with a smile. The peace of mind of my family furnished me with a pretext for retarding my resignation, and induced me to come to this distant place for interment. Paris and London have not convinced me it is more my interest to live than to die; on the contrary, it would be ridiculous to nourish evils without a hope of relieving oneself, in which I think every man ought to do as he thinks proper. You may say, sir, that I am a fool, which I much rather would be than be wise and suffer. I do not perceive any very great advantage in living to eat, to drink, and to sleep, for that is the whole train of life; and as sleep is beyond contradiction the greatest blessing, I will take this evening some pills which will make me sleep a long time. If the four elements should re-unite, and after a thousand combinations should form me once more, I would not consent to exist but under the English Government, which is excellence itself, and which ought to serve as a model to all nations of the world. I have seen all, tasted all, but I am not willing to begin life again." This man was clearly a lunatic, - a fact which was proved by the manner in which he disposed of his money, but not by the act of suicide. He appeared to be a French officer, as his pistols bore the marks of the corps of gendarmes, at that period a body-guard. He was a remarkably handsome man, and in manner elegant and polite. A French soldier of the name of Bourdeaux being determined to put an end to his life, persuaded a comrade, called Humain, to follow his example. They both repaired to an inn at St. Denis, and bespoke a good dinner. One of them went out to buy some powder and ball. They spent the day (Christmas) together with great cheerfulness, called for more wine, and, about four o'clock in the evening blew out their brains, leaving some empty bottles, their will, a letter, and half a crown in addition to the amount of their bill. The following letter was addressed by Bourdeaux to the lieutenant of his troop, and was as follows:-"SIR,- during my residence at Guise you honoured me with your friendship. It is time to thank you. You have often told me that I appeared displeased with my situation. I was sincere, but not absolutely true. I have since examined myself more seriously, and acknowledge that I am disgusted with every state of man, the whole world, and myself. From these discoveries a consequence should be drawn,-if disgusted with the whole, renounce the whole. The calculation is not long, I have made it without the aid of geometry. In short, I am about putting an end to the existence that I have possessed for near twenty years, fifteen of which have been a burthen to me; and from the moment that I have ended this letter, a few grains of powder will destroy this moving mass of flesh, which we vain mortals call the king of beings. I owe no one an excuse. I deserted. That was a crime; but I am going to punish it, and the law will be satisfied. I asked leave of absence from my superior officers to VOL. VI. 20 have the pleasure of dying at my ease. They never condescended to give me an answer. This served to hasten my end. I wrote to Bord, to send you some detached pieces I left at Guise, which I beg you will accept. You will find that they contain some well-chosen literature. These pieces will solicit for me a place in your remembrance. Adieu, my dear Lieutenant! Continue your esteem for St. Lambert and Dorat. As for the rest, skip from flower to flower, and acquire the sweets of all knowledge, and enjoy every pleasure. "Pour moi, j'arrive au trou, Qui n'échappe ni sage ni fou, "If we exist after this life, and it is forbidden to quit it without permission, I will endeavour to procure one moment to inform you of it; if not, I shall advise all those who are unhappy, which is by far the greater part of mankind, to follow my example. When you receive this letter I shall have been dead at least twenty-four hours. With esteem, &c. Bourdeaux.” Colonel Philip Mordaunt, a young man of about twenty-seven years of age, nearly related to the Earl of Peterborough, although enjoying every happiness, and fondly beloved by the object on whom he had placed his affections, shot himself from a mere distaste of life. In one of the letters he wrote previous to this desperate act, he merely says, "Life has given me a headach, and I want a good churchyard sleep to set me right, as my soul is tired of my body." Not long ago a young French dramatist of the name of Escoupe, destroyed himself and his collaborator in a play, which had not succeeded to the full extent of their anticipations, and concluding that they were too clever for the tasteless world, shut themselves up with a pan of charcoal. Lord L, in 1834, cast himself into the crater of Mount Vesuvius ; while a German, anxious to follow his example, but unable to travel so far, threw himself into a smelting furnace; while a Frenchman, anxious for a coup de théâtre, attached himself to an enormous rocket, une fusée monstre, and blew himself up. The case of Vatel, the cook, who plunged his sword into his body, because fish had not arrived in time for dinner, is well known. Dr. Schlegel states that there existed in Paris a society calling itself "The Friends of Suicide." It was composed of twelve members. A lot was annually cast to decide which of them should commit suicide in the presence of his colleagues. Each member of the union was to prove in a satisfactory manner, 1. that he was a man of honour; 2. that he had experienced the injustice of mankind, the ingratitude of a friend, the perfidy of a mistress, or the falsehood of a wife; 3. that he had experienced for years an irremediable vacuity of the soul, and was discontented with everything in this lower world. Dr. Schlegel, in his wrath against the French metropolis, where such an association could exist, calls it " a suffocating, boiling caldron, in which, as in the stew of Macbeth's witches, they simmer, with a modicum of virtue, all kinds of passions, vices, and crimes." pose. Various are the means to which suicides resort to effect their purThis selection of modes of dying appears to be connected with the age of the individual, as will appear by the following table. In 1000 cases |