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Neurotic Books and News- 
 papers as Factors in the 
 Mortality of Suicide 
 and Crime 
 
 By 
 
 Edward Bunnell Phelps, M.A., F.S.S. 
 
 Editor, The American Underwriter, of New York City, 
 and Author of "A Statistical Study of Infant Mor- 
 tality," American Mortality Statistics for 
 Nine Years," "Infant Mortality's Ur- 
 gent Call for Action," "The 
 Mortality of Alcohol," Etc. 
 
 Address delivered at the 36th Annual Meeting of the American Acad- 
 emy of Medicine, at Los Angeles, Cal., June 24, 191 1, and reprinted from 
 the "Bulletin of the American Academy of Medicine," Vol. XII, No. 5 
 (issue of Oct., 191 1). 
 
'<0 
 
 
NEUROTIC BOOKS AND NEWSPAPERS AS FACTORS IN 
 THE MORTALITY OF SUICIDE AND CRIME- 
 
 By Edward Bunnell Phelps, M.A., F.S.S.. editor, "The American Underwriter," of 
 New York City. 
 
 Printers' ink, like carbolic acid, has great potentialities for 
 both good and evil, and both of the chemical compounds named 
 have certain intimate relations with suicide and crime. Properly 
 applied, both are prophylactic in their effects ; and yet, the one, 
 the quicker-acting poison, is often employed as an instrument 
 of suicide and crime, and the other — the slower-acting, insidious, 
 poison — is not infrequently so misused as to make it- an incentive 
 to both forms of killing. Carbolic finds its way into the hands 
 of comparatively few people, except those who fully sense its 
 dangers and act accordingly; whereas printers' ink now finds 
 its way to practically every inhabitant of the civilized world 
 — and in most cases its world-wide clientele purchases and dabbles 
 with a fresh supply every day in the year. Looking squarely 
 in the face the pernicious possibilities of printers' ink, if recklessly 
 or malevolently employed, can there be the slightest question 
 as to the relative powers for evil of the two agencies named, 
 with their vastly differing range of operation? 
 
 The "Statistical Abstract of the United States" places the total 
 number of periodicals and newspapers published in this country 
 in 1909, at 22,603, an( i th e latest expert estimates fix in round 
 numbers on 60,000 as the approximate total of newspapers now 
 published in the world at large, of which considerably more than 
 one-half are published in English-speaking countries. Ac- 
 cording to statistics compiled by the editor of "The Publishers' 
 Weekly," the United States and Great Britain each turned out 
 more than 10,000 books of one kind or another in 1909, and the 
 annual output by the entire world of books, good, bad and in- 
 different, now approximates 150,000. The total circulation of 
 these 60,000 newspapers and 150,000 books nowadays annually 
 
published must be simply incalculable. As well try to count 
 the sands of the sea. This much is certain, however; "the best 
 sellers" of the present age, whether newspapers or books are con- 
 sidered, unquestionably are those which cater to the lower in- 
 stincts, and at small price provide the needed quantum of sensa- 
 tion and spice for jaded appetites. However unfortunate this 
 fact may be, a fact it obviously is, and at this particular epoch 
 of yellowized journalism — and no less yellowized literature — 
 newspapers and books of neurotic tendencies are on the very 
 crest of the wave of profit-making prosperity. On the strength 
 of more than a quarter-century's association at close quarters 
 with printers' ink, and a somewhat wide acquaintance with the 
 making of newspapers and books and with those who make them, 
 I venture the preceding statement without the slightest fear of 
 contra version. And it is with this appallingly large proportion 
 of neurotic books and newspapers, and their close identification 
 with suicide and crime as a factor in their mortality, that this 
 paper undertakes to deal. 
 
 THE FIRST AUTHORITATIVE WARNING OF THE DANGER. 
 
 To the best of my knowledge, the first authoritative warning 
 against the baneful suggestive influence of the publication by 
 newspapers of the grewsome details of suicides and murders 
 was sounded about seventy years ago by that eminent English 
 statistician, Dr. William Farr, who for all but forty years was 
 the statistical expert of the British Registrar-General's office, 
 and was largely responsible for making the annual output of that 
 office occupy its preeminent position in the domain of vital 
 statistics bearing a governmental imprint. In the third annual 
 report of the Registrar-General's office, published in 1841, Dr. 
 Farr expressed this deliberate conclusion (pp. 79-82) : "Some 
 plan for discontinuing, by common consent, the detailed, dramatic 
 tales of suicide, murder, and bloodshed in the newspapers is 
 well worthy the attention of their editors. No fact is better 
 established in science than that suicide (and murder may per- 
 haps be added) is often committed from imitation. A single 
 paragraph may suggest suicide to twenty persons ; some particular, 
 chance, but apt expression, seizes the imagination, and the dis- 
 
position to repeat the act, in a moment of morbid excitement, 
 proves irresistible. Do the advantages of publicity counter- 
 balance the evils attendant on one such death? Why should 
 cases of suicide be recorded at length in the public papers, any 
 more than cases of fever?" In his comments on "Statistics of 
 Suicide, 1838," Dr. Farr had noted the fact that "M. Brouc, 
 after an elaborate inquiry, lays it down as a 'social law,' that 
 suicide is most common where education is mostdiffused ; that 
 suicides and scholars increase in the same ratio. Modern educa- 
 tion and literature, it is said, have led to an increase in the number 
 of suicides It may be admitted that there is some rela- 
 tion between the development of the intellect and self-destruction ; 
 but the connection must be in a great measure indirect and 
 accidental. If the progress of civilization is to be charged with 
 the increase of suicide, we must therefore understand by it the 
 increase of tailors, shoemakers, the small trades, the mechanical 
 occupations, and the incidental evils to which they are exposed, 
 rather than the advancement of truth, science, literature, and the 
 fine arts." This reductio ad absurdum of the careless debiting 
 of civilization with the increase in the suicide rate, which is even 
 now often reiterated in various places, is an interesting demon- 
 stration of the clear thinking of Dr. Farr, nearly three-quarters 
 of a century ago, but his subsequent warning of the suggestive 
 influence of newspapers on the suicide rate was much more 
 important. Scores of writers have since commented on that 
 subject — that phase of modern civilization, if you please so to 
 term it — but perhaps no one of them all has been qualified to 
 lend so much weight to his utterances as was, and is to this 
 day, attached to the deliberate conclusion of one of the greatest 
 of all the world's vital statisticians. 
 
 The citation before this body of physicians, "specializing in 
 medical sociology," of even the briefest extracts from various 
 latter-day writers and speakers on the relations of newspapers 
 with suicide and crime may strongly savor of carrying coals 
 to Newcastle. In the case of an important matter which at 
 best can be but a matter of opinion, however, the citation of 
 the conclusions and utterances of many men of many minds 
 
plays an important part in shaping the general opinion, and 
 I venture to round out the record with these concrete extracts 
 from the copious literature on the subject, practically arranged 
 in chronological order. 
 
 In his paper on "The Causes of Crime," read before the National 
 Conference of Unitarian and other Christian Churches, at Sara- 
 toga, N. Y., September 17, 1874, ^ ie R- ev - Au g- Woodbury 
 said: "To these (causes of crime), also, must be added the power 
 of superstition, bigotry, and religious sentitnentalism, and also 
 the pernicious influence of a vile literature. We have alluded 
 to the influence of a vile literature, and particularly would we 
 condemn those makers and venders of the miserable illustrated 
 papers which are thrust upon us in almost every railway train, 
 and whose trade seems to have been encroached upon of late 
 even by journals which are respectable, in their profession, at 
 least. ^ We hold all such and all members of society to a strict 
 moral accountability." In passing to the next comment on the 
 subject, it is worth while to note that the reverend speaker's 
 criticism of the crime-purveying tendencies of supposedly re- 
 spectable journals was made in 1874, almost forty years ago, 
 when the sensational journalism of the present day was un- 
 dreamed of. What would the speaker have had to say on the 
 subject, could he then have had an advance copy of one of the 
 sensational newspapers of 191 1, with perhaps one-half of its 
 space given up to scare head-lines and stories of crime and suicide? 
 
 Among the reports and papers published by the Howard As- 
 sociation, of London, is a reproduction of Henry Ward Beecher's 
 comment on "Crime and its Remedy," which apparently was 
 issued about 1880. Under the sub-title of "Corrupt Literature," 
 Mr. Beecher said: "I must mention also another thing that 
 seems to me to stand ultimately connected with the dangers of 
 the community: I mean the introduction of criminal news into 
 our literature — not only into our novels, but in our daily food. 
 Let a man become an atrocious criminal, and, under the pre- 
 tense of giving news, our daily journals set forth his life contin- 
 uously. I do not believe that it is possible for the mishaped 
 young minds of the community to become conversant with 
 
the news of crime, in all its forms, and not be injured by it. 
 Familiarity with vice takes away sensibility to vice. And yet 
 gulf streams, vast currents, of criminal news sweep through your 
 houses every day. What would you think if a man were to open 
 a common sewer, and run out of the street through your back- 
 yard all the feculent matter of society? Would it conduce to 
 health, comfort and convenience? And yet to what an extent 
 is the feculent news of the day run through your houses every 
 morning and every evening in the newspapers? Can it be whole- 
 some? Can it be wise? Can it be justifiable?" This being 
 Mr. Beecher's view of the newspapers of the late 70's, or early 
 8o's, what would have been his view of the metropolitan "penny 
 dreadfuls" of 1911? To answer that question, it would be neces- 
 sary to secure one of the cheap newspapers of, say, the latter days of 
 President Hayes' administration, lay it alongside of its 1911 
 counterpart on your library table, and compare notes. 
 
 LATTER-DAY CONFIRMATION OF THE WARNING BY VARIOUS 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL AUTHORITIES. 
 
 It will be recalled that Dr. Farr had declared, in 1841, that 
 "no fact is better established in science than that suicide (and 
 murder may perhaps be added) is often committed from imita- 
 tion." This sweeping statement of his was strongly confirmed, 
 more than half a century later, in the chapter on "Suicide from 
 Imitation" in the work on "Suicide and Insanity," by Dr. S. A. 
 K. Strahan, published in London in 1893, from which I make 
 this quotation (pp. 141, et seq.) : 
 
 Suicide, from imitation, is much more common than might be expected. 
 Many notable examples are to be found in ancient history, and even in the 
 present day, it is by no means rarely met with. When self-destruction 
 becomes epidemic, as it sometimes does, it very often depends, in a large 
 degree, upon imitation. 
 
 In suicide from imitation, we sometimes have it demonstrated, that, 
 although dependent upon predisposition, it is, to a considerable extent, 
 under the control of the will. For instance, in the case of the women of 
 Miletus, who committed suicide in large numbers because their husbands 
 and lovers were detained by the wars, the epidemic was put an end to by 
 the edict that the bodies of all who committed suicide were to be carried 
 naked through the streets. In the seventeenth century, a similar epidemic 
 
broke out among the women of Lyons, differing only from that of Miletus 
 in there being no known cause for the outbreak. In this case the governor 
 effectually checked the disorder by decreeing that the suicides' bodies were 
 to be exposed naked in the market-place. 
 
 Even the representation on the stage, of suicide under conditions ap- 
 pealing forcibly to sympathy and imagination, has often been known to be 
 followed by imitative self-destruction.S' Thus it is recorded by Legoyt, that 
 after the drama "Chatterton," by M. de Vigny, was produced in Paris, many 
 persons killed themselves in imitation of the hero. The same effect has 
 been known to follow the performance of other dramas in which suicide, 
 under strikingly pitiful or heroic circumstances, has been represented. 
 
 How far the element of imitation enters into the suicides which occur 
 from such places as Waterloo Bridge, Highgate Archway, and the Clifton 
 Suspension Bridge it is impossible to say; but that it does have an influence is 
 pretty certain. It is not too much to say that some, at least, of the sui- 
 cides which followed that of Miss Moyes (1839) from the London Monu- 
 ment, must have had a considerable element of imitation in them, just as 
 those of the soldiers who hanged themselves, one after another, from the 
 lintel of a certain doorway in the Hotel des Invalides had. In the latter 
 instance the imitation was patent. No suicide had occurred in the insti- 
 tution for more than two years, when a man was found one morning sus- 
 pended from the lintel of a doorway. Within the fourteen days following, 
 five men were found hanging from the same beam. The governor had the 
 passage closed, and so soon as the identical method of suicide was rendered 
 impossible, the epidemic disappeared as suddenly as it began. 
 
 On page 39 of his book, Dr. Strahan discusses another factor 
 of suicide which has a no less direct bearing upon the relation 
 of sensational newspapers with self-killing, to wit, the craving 
 of the prospective suicide for the notoriety which, as he has 
 repeatedly seen, newspapers of this class give to many suicides. 
 He says: "The individual who terminates his life merely that, 
 like Eleazar, he may live in history or in the memories of his 
 fellows as the doer of at least one heroic act, is generally but 
 poorly qualified for legitimately distinguishing himself. He is 
 cursed with an inordinate and all-consuming vanity which pre- 
 ordains him to self-destruction, for suicide is almost the only 
 mode of procedure open to him whereby he can satisfy the craving 
 of his soul. His vanity is insatiable as the drunkard's thirst, 
 and knowing that he can never legitimately gain the notoriety 
 which is absolutely necessary for his happiness, he willingly 
 quits an obscure life for a notorious death." 
 
In the work on "Criminology," by Mr. Arthur MacDonald, 
 published in 1893, there is a chapter devoted to "Criminal Con- 
 tagion," and under the sub-title of "Contagion from the Press," 
 Mr. MacDonald says (p. 129): "This indirect contagion is as 
 certain as the direct, which comes from surroundings, often from 
 infancy. Aubry gives several cases in illustration." 
 
 Aubry's book to which Mr. MacDonald alludes was entitled 
 "La contagion du meurtre," and was published in Paris, the 
 third edition which I have seen having been issued in 1895. In 
 his very recent work on "Modern Theories of Criminality," 
 Mr. C. Bernaldo de Quir6s quotes from Aubry's book at some 
 length, in part as follows: "Long before the discovery of the 
 nature of virulent diseases, it was known that two elements 
 were indispensable for a man in good health to catch cholera, 
 for instance, directly or indirectly, from a patient. There was 
 needed a virus — microbes we would say to-day; but neither the 
 virus nor the microbes can always act. Members of the same 
 family may be subjected to the same regime of life for several 
 days, and yet two, three, four of them will be infected, while 
 the others will not, although exposed to the same causes and 
 to the contact of their ill or dead relatives. Why is this? It 
 is because the virulent element has not found in them a pre- 
 pared soil in which to develop and thrive; while in the others 
 the soil was of the most favorable and the germs multiplied and 
 soon caused more or less serious disorders. When it is a question 
 of moral contagion, crime for instance, do things happen other- 
 wise? Not in the least. We shall find the same process, with 
 the only difference that we can analyze the various elements 
 instead of examining them under the microscope or cultivating 
 them in gelatine." 
 
 Mr. de Quiros then continues: "In his (Aubry's) opinion, 
 the agencies that prepare the ground are: (a) direct heredity; 
 (b) unbalanced nervous system ; (c) certain anatomical deformities 
 or conformations still badly defined. The agencies which trans- 
 mit the contagion, either singly or combined with one another, 
 are : (a) home education (guilty family) ; (b) prison ; (c) reading 
 
of novels and periodicals containing accounts of crimes; (d) the 
 spectacle of capital executions." 
 
 Lombroso, by the way, confirms this theory of Aubry's, that 
 predisposition is one of the important factors in the making of 
 criminals, saying in his work on "The Female Offender" (p. 201, 
 New York edition of 1895): "It is true that, as in hypnotism, 
 the subject only responds to the suggestions which are in harmony 
 with his character; and the women who are induced by another 
 will than their own to commit offences have certainly had a latent 
 tendency to crime." 
 
 In an article in "The North American Review," in 1891, by 
 William Mathews, I,L.D., on "Civilization and Suicide," various 
 notable instances of imitative epidemics of suicide are cited, 
 and the writer notes the fact that "in 1882, so many Parisians 
 sought death by throwing themselves from the Vendome Column 
 that the ascent was interdicted to the public. After Castle- 
 reagh killed himself with a penknife in 1822, many more English- 
 men killed themselves in the same way.* * * One of the inevi- 
 table effects of cultivation is to make men dissatisfied with poverty 
 and deprivation; to stimulate the demands for the comforts 
 of life which the mass of toilers cannot attain." 
 
 To quote from another magazine article, which was published 
 in "The Westminster Review," under the title of "Crime in 
 Current Literature, " in 1897, the anonymous author says (pp. 
 429-438, Vol. CXLVII) : "It has been carefully estimated that 
 fully 80 per cent, of the yearly output of works that may be 
 classified as purely fictional are exclusively stories of crime and 
 criminals; and when it is recollected that the bulk of this body 
 of writings is by second- and third-rate hands, it is not difficult 
 to imagine the degree of its perniciousness on the minds and 
 morals of the great novel-reading public." The anonymous 
 author also comments at length on the deplorable prevalence of 
 so-called "detective stories," and says that of nearly 800 weekly 
 newspapers published in Great Britain, no fewer than 240 pub- 
 lished (presumably in 1896-7) complete, or portions of, detective 
 stories. 
 
 In 1894 the late Col. Robert G. Ingersoll had done more than 
 
perhaps any other one man in this country has ever done to set 
 people seriously thinking on suicide, by the publication in the 
 New York "World," of August 7, 1894, of a long philosophical 
 discussion over his autograph signature of the subject "Is Suicide 
 a Sin?" — which, with its aftermath, is a very important phase 
 of the subject of this paper, and is discussed at some length on 
 subsequent pages. Notwithstanding this action of his in 1894, 
 less than four years later (on February 1, 1898), in the course 
 of an impromptu address to the members of the New Orleans 
 Press Club, by whom he was being entertained, Col. Ingersoll 
 said: "I am not so much opposed to what is called sensational- 
 ism, for that must exist so long as crime is considered news, 
 and believe me, when virtue becomes news it can only be when 
 this will have become an exceedingly bad world. At the same 
 time I think that the publication of crime may have more or 
 less the tendency of increasing it. I read not long ago that if 
 some heavy piece of furniture were dropped in a room in which 
 there was a string instrument, the strings in harmony with the 
 vibrations of the air made by that noise took up the sound. 
 Now, a man with a tendency to crime would pick up that criminal 
 feeling inspiring the act which he sees blazoned forth in all its 
 details in the press. In that view of the matter it seems to me 
 better not to give details of all offences." 
 
 As an exceptionally comprehensive review of some of the 
 principal suggestive influences, and especially those of books 
 and newspapers, which move men to crime and suicide, and 
 hence, as an appropriate ending for this symposium of extracts 
 from many commentators, I now present the appended citations 
 from the authoritative work by Dr. G. Frank Lydston on "The 
 Diseases of Society (The Vice and Crime Problem)," published 
 in 1904. Under the heading of "Suggestion and Crime — The 
 Press, Evil Literature, and the Stage," Dr. Lydston says (pp. 
 too, el sea.) : 
 A SPECIALIST'S comprehensive analysis of the effects of 
 
 PERNICIOUS "LITERARY" SUGGESTION- 
 Suggestion as a cause of crime has not received the attention it deserves. 
 The foundation of criminality being usually a neurosis — an unstable equi- 
 
IO 
 
 librium of the centers of moral control and will — it is obvious that the con- 
 ditions are favorable to the influence of suggestion. The various phases 
 of suggestion in criminality may be classified as follows : 
 i. Suggestion by mere association with criminals. 
 
 2 . Suggestion by the press and pernicious literature. 
 
 3. Active suggestion by specific criminal acts by vicious and depraved 
 persons. 
 
 4. Hypnotism. 
 
 5. Suggestion imparted by the apparent safety and profit of a given form 
 of vice or crime. 
 
 Probably the most powerful factor of suggestion is the press, with its 
 glaring sensational headlines and vivid accounts of murder, theft, and sui- 
 cides. The neuropath reads of a great embezzlement followed by successful 
 flight, or capture which he, in his superior wisdom, could have avoided; 
 of a successful speculative coup ; of the murder of a guilty or suspected wife ; 
 of a daring hold-up or burglary; of a suicide — and the suggestion is made. 
 The result depends upon the environment and existing mental bias of the 
 subject. Most of the suggestion results only in brain-pictures of himself 
 committing similar deeds; only too frequently, however, the impulse to go 
 and do likewise is too strong to be resisted. Literature of all grades has 
 its effect in criminal suggestion. The dime novel of youth is -a dangerous 
 element in its training. There is a "literary" disposition to lionize the des- 
 perado that is disastrous to the morals of boys. Dick Turpin, Billy the 
 Kid, the Earps, Wild Bill, Jesse James, and Cole Younger, are boyish ideals. 
 
 The influence of the morbid and sensational in literature has been most 
 pernicious. There is a moral or psychic contagium in certain books that 
 is as definite and disastrous as that of the plague. The germs of psychopath)' 
 — of mental ill health — are as potent in their way, and, as things go nowadays, 
 as far-reaching in evil effects, as syphilis or leprosy. The average lay reader 
 can but be injured by prurient realism; can only be made mentally and mor- 
 ally sick by the vagaries of certain literary paranoiacs. The pubescent 
 reader is in the greatest danger from unhealthful reading. He or she is in 
 a condition of unstable equilibrium — adjustment to environment is not 
 yet perfect ; the emotions are keyed to the highest pitch ; the centers of ideation 
 are plastic. As the psychic twig is bent at this time, the cerebral tree is 
 indeed inclined. Many a life has been ruined by psychic wounds — wounds 
 from infected and infective ideas at this critical period. 
 
 Certain determining factors in the etiology of suicide must always be 
 taken into consideration. Chief among these are too intense mental and 
 physical strain, the greed and excitement of speculation, alcoholism, morbid 
 literature and plays, financial disappointments and disasters, disappointed 
 hopes and ambitions of all kinds, grief, thwarted love, jealousy, physical 
 suffering, domestic misery, suggestive newspaper accounts of self-murder, 
 and true insanity. Behind the majority of cases is a varying and often 
 unknown degree of neuropsychic degeneracy. 
 
The element of suggestion in the literature alluded to — which literature 
 is itself the product of degeneracy — is sufficiently plain. It is especially 
 disastrous in the case of neuropsychic degenerates (p. 190). 
 
 That vanity is a prominent feature of the psychology of the criminal ha 
 been noted by numerous observers. Ellis remarks: "Their vanity witnesses 
 at once to their false estimate of living and of themselves, and to their ego- 
 tistic delight in admiration." The great criminal is the genius of the crime 
 class, and he has all of the defects of the true genius without any of his ad- 
 mirable qualities. One of these defects, as already observed, is a morbid 
 degree of self -appreciation (pp. 507-8). 
 
 Of course the collection of extracts from notable commenta- 
 tors on the pernicious influence of neurotic books and news- 
 papers which I have assembled is but a mere drop in the bucket 
 of adverse comment now available. But it suffices to indicate 
 the substantial unanimity of opinion on the subject on the part 
 of all thoughtful observers and students of social problems. 
 If any competent writer on the subject has seriously dissented 
 from the general consensus of opinion, a fairly comprehensive 
 examination of the bibliography of suicide and crime has failed 
 to discover the fact. In so far as a general accord of intelligent 
 people as to the truth of any particular charge may be regarded 
 as actual proof, the charge against books and newspapers of the 
 sensational type may therefore be said to be proven; a mathe- 
 matical, or statistical, demonstration of either the truth of the 
 charge or the merest approximate measure of the evil results 
 of the pernicious influence in question is an entirely different 
 matter, and practically impossible. In comparatively rare 
 cases, by means of written or printed evidence, or confessions 
 on the part of the actual, or would-be, suicide or murderer, the 
 direct responsibility of printers' ink for the suicide or crime may 
 now and then be conclusively proven. But by no means always 
 do men themselves know the moving cause for their own acts, 
 and only in very few cases will they, or can they, reveal that 
 cause to others. When the acts under investigation are of a 
 criminal nature, it is practically useless to expect the perpe- 
 trators to state the true reasons which led them to commit the 
 crimes, even if they could state them. And in the rare cases 
 when men under criminal charges do pretend to make partial 
 
confessions, or a clean breast of their crimes, their alleged revela- 
 tions are more or less tinged, consciously or unconsciously, with 
 false statements. In general, therefore, neither the case itself 
 nor the approximate measurements of the case against suggestive 
 books and newspapers can be reduced to a demonstration in the 
 form of actual figures. The practically universal increase in 
 the mortality of suicides of late years, however, can be demon- 
 strated by official figures of at least comparative accuracy; and 
 as this increase historically parallels that in the number and 
 percentage of sensational, crime-inciting, books and newspapers, 
 at least a semblance of positive evidence of the relations of the 
 two is thereby afforded — though not for a moment, of course, 
 can the open-minded student of the painfully complex problem 
 of the increase in suicide forget the fact that the suggestion of 
 printers' ink is but one of the many factors involved. 
 
 The statistics of criminology are not only open to the general 
 suspicion of inaccuracy which rests against the great bulk of 
 governmental statistics — except in fields where exact official 
 figures are necessarily available — but are conceded to be fraught 
 with errors and weaknesses peculiar to them, owing to constantly 
 changing conditions and serious discrepancies in the methods 
 of keeping criminal records. These objections not only obviously 
 apply to any attempted comparisons of the criminal statistics of 
 different cities, or countries, but even to comparisons of the criminal 
 records of the same city, or country, at different periods and 
 under different administrations. For instance, "Bulletin" 20 of 
 the Bureau of the Census, issued in 1905, and giving the "Sta- 
 tistics of Cities Having a Population of over 25,000 — 1902 and 
 1903," records the number of arrests for drunkenness in Boston 
 in 1903 as 27,792, and that in St. Louis in the same year as 5,201. 
 Both the population and police force of St. Louis were substantially 
 identical with those of Boston in point of number in that year, 
 but on the strength of the statistical record the number of arrests 
 for drunkenness in Boston was more than five times as large as 
 that in St. Louis, although the number of retail liquor saloons 
 in Boston was but 783 as compared with the 2,581 licensed in 
 St. Louis. That is to say, in so far as published official records 
 
'3 
 
 of the Bureau of the Census go to show, sedate and semi-Puri- 
 tanical Boston, with less than one-third as many saloons as St. 
 I,ouis, apparently had within its borders in 1903 more than five 
 times as much drunkenness as did the Missouri metropolis ! 
 
 Almost innumerable other proofs of the incomparability of 
 many phases of criminal statistics might be cited, but, fortunately, 
 as this paper deals only with the actual mortality of suicide and 
 crime, the criminal statistics appended hereto are restricted 
 to actual deaths recorded as due to homicide, and hence are 
 fairly comparable f Probably in most, if not all, cases, the re- 
 corded numbers of deaths due to suicide or homicide are below 
 the actual figures; but it is entirely safe to assume that the re- 
 corded numbers never exceed the actual numbers. •'"In any event, 
 therefore, the official figures are not open to the charge of ex- 
 aggeration, and if the standards of the several bureaus of vital 
 statistics whose figures are compared are fairly uniform the rela- 
 tive showing of their figures is not materially misleading. To 
 be sure, there has been so pronounced an improvement in the 
 registration of vital statistics in many sections of this country 
 of late years, that the apparent increase in the mortality of both 
 suicide and homicide is probably to some extent due to the in- 
 creased percentage of registration of deaths in these classes, 
 as the Bureau of the Census has pointed out. But, with this 
 warning, the official figures are presented in the tables attached 
 to this paper, and are the only obtainable means of studying the 
 mortality of suicide and crime. 
 
 All things considered, the returns of the Registrar- General, 
 of England and Wales, probably rank as the most complete 
 and accurate vital statistics now obtainable for any country. 
 The annual returns in question have been compiled and published 
 for nearly seventy-five years, now deal with a total population 
 of more than 35,000,000, and, largely through the pioneer work 
 of the first statistician of the Registrar-General's office, Dr. 
 Farr, are laid out on sound lines, and are, for the most part, 
 justly comparable from year to year. With the single exception 
 of those of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we have no 
 vital statistics for this country, or any part of it, which begin 
 
14 
 
 to compare in point of both antiquity and comprehensiveness 
 with those of the British Registrar-General's office, and I have 
 therefore commenced this statistical inquiry into the mortality 
 of suicide and crime — in part at least undoubtedly due to the 
 poisonous influence of printers' ink — with the study of the mor- 
 tality on these lines in England and Wales, appended to this 
 paper in Table I. 
 
 THE COMPLETE SUICIDE AND HOMICIDE RATES OF ENGLAND AND 
 WALES AS A BASIS OF COMPARISON. 
 
 Those who are interested in detailed figures can find them in 
 this case by referring to the table in question, but it will suffice 
 in this connection to state that the tabulation presents the figures 
 for deaths, both male and female, by suicide and homicide, 
 and the rates per 1,000,000 population in each case, for the years 
 1889 to 1908, inclusive, and also by the two decades therein 
 involved. In the decade, 1889-1898, the total number of sui- 
 cides registered in England and Wales was 25,891, as against 
 33,292 in the decade, 1899-1908, and the numbers of suicides 
 per 1,000,000 of population in the two decades were respectively 
 86.3 and 99.0, the suicide rate for the latter decade, therefore, 
 apparently being higher by 14.72 per cent. Probably many 
 people will be surprised to learn that in the case of deaths charged 
 to homicide there apparently has been a slight decrease, rather 
 than an increase, in England and Wales in the decade ending 
 with 1908 as compared with that ending with 1898, in the later 
 decade the homicides having numbered but 2,986, and in the 
 earlier decade 3,040. The ratios per 1,000,000 of population 
 were, in 1889-1898, 10.1, and in the decade 1899-1908 only 
 9.0, thus recording a decrease of 10.89 P^ cent. The decrease 
 in number was restricted to male deaths from homicide, but in 
 the case of both male and female deaths from this cause there 
 was a small decrease in the ratio per 1,000,000 of sex popula- 
 tion. The returns for the Registration Area of the United States 
 (for ten years) present a very different showing in the matter 
 of homicides, and as these are the only official homicide records 
 for any considerable part of the population of this country for 
 
15 
 
 any real stretch of time now available, they would seem to con- 
 firm the common impression that the crime of murder, as well 
 as various other crimes, is steadily increasing on this side of the 
 Atlantic. Possibly the fact that the population of England 
 and Wales is racially much more homogeneous than is that of 
 this country, and in some ways much more stable, may, in part 
 at least, account for the apparent decrease in murders in Great 
 Britain. Presumably if there is any change in the registration 
 of deaths due to homicide, the change would be in the direction 
 of a more, and not less, perfect registration, and the apparent 
 decrease may therefore be accepted at its face value. With 
 the material increase in civilization, and the gradual subjection 
 of the primeval animal instincts of man, a decrease in the crime 
 of killing would seem in the natural order of things, unless certain 
 material changes in modern congested and intensified life were 
 to counterbalance the normal decrease in the crime of murder. 
 
 I think it may fairly be assumed, however, that the mere fact 
 of a decrease of 10.89 per cent, in the ratio of deaths by homicide 
 per 1,000,000 population in the latter decade in England and 
 Wales by no means disproves the common belief of intelligent 
 observers that the suggestive sensationalism of certain types 
 of modern books and newspapers tends to incite men to crime. 
 Might there not, very probably, have been an even greater de- 
 crease in the British homicide rate in the decade ending with 
 1908, as compared with the previous decade, but for the ever- 
 present pernicious influence of printers' ink? On one side of 
 the argument are the civilizing influences of modern life which 
 obviously trend toward a reduction of crime; on the other side 
 of the argument, are certain unsocializing influences, conspicuous 
 among which is that of suggestive books and newspapers, which 
 trend toward an increase in crime. Even though in the case 
 of England and Wales there be a slight apparent decrease in so 
 far as the one crime of consummated murder is concerned, that 
 mere fact proves no error in the common rating of the powers 
 for evil of evil books and newspapers. Proving a negative 
 is hard work in almost all cases, and in this case is simply impossi- 
 ble. A decrease in the number and ratio of murders in a land 
 
i6 
 
 having as many sensational books and newspapers as does Great 
 Britain certainly does not prove that those books and newspapers 
 were not really responsible for quite a number of the murders 
 which did occur. As a matter of fact, it will be recalled, in that 
 same country in that same period there was a pronounced in- 
 crease in both the number and ratio of suicides — in the case of 
 both sexes, by the way — and in all probability the evil influences 
 in question are more intimately related to the suicide rate than 
 to the homicide rate. 
 
 In the case of the United States, or any considerable part of 
 it, about the only vital statistics of real importance yet obtainable 
 are those of the Registration Area for the last ten years. The 
 decennial census taken in 1900 was the twelfth in the history 
 of this counrty, to be sure, but so materially have the registra- 
 tion methods of a good-sized section of the country been improved 
 under the intelligent direction of the Division of Vital Statistics 
 of the Bureau of the Census in recent years that the figures of 
 the previous decennial censuses are scarcely worthy of serious 
 comparison with those presented in the annual mortality statistics 
 of the Bureau for the last ten years. The permanent Bureau 
 of the Census was not established by Act of Congress until 1902, 
 and in that year in the case of certain States, and cities of some 
 other States, having a population aggregating only 40.6 of the 
 total population of Continental United States were the registra- 
 tion returns of deaths of sufficient apparent accuracy to warrant 
 the inclusion of those States and cities of other States in the so- 
 called Registration Area whose figures are presented in the 
 annual Mortality Statistics of the Bureau of the Census. By 
 1909 there had been the necessary improvement in the registra- 
 tion methods of enough other States and cities to increase the 
 Registration Area — or list of States and cities of other States 
 whose mortality records are satisfactory — to an area having 
 55.3 per cent, of the total population of Continental United States, 
 thus increasing the Registration Area by more than one-third 
 in point of population in eight years — this gain of more than 
 36 per cent, in population of course including the normal gain 
 in the population of the States and cities which were included 
 
17 
 
 in the area in 1902. Thus rapidly expanding as the Registration 
 Area of this country is, until it now includes considerably more 
 than one-half of the total population, the so-called annual Mor- 
 tality Statistics of the United States actually deal with approxi- 
 mately only one-half of its total population, instead of covering 
 as do the vital statistics of England and Wales every city, town 
 and hamlet. In other words, by no means complete vital statis- 
 tics for this country are yet obtainable by years, and thus it is, 
 unfortunately, that in practically all the international compila- 
 tions of vital statistics those of one of the largest and most im- 
 portant of nations are omitted. 
 
 THE INCOMPLETE RECORDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 I have considered it not only advisable, but necessary, to make 
 perfectly clear the limitations of the suicide and homicide mor- 
 tality figures for the United States which are presented in the 
 appended tables, before taking up and briefly summarizing in 
 the text the showings of the tables in question, and comparing 
 them with those for England and Wales, and other countries. 
 Nominally tracing the increased mortality of the United States 
 in the case of suicides and homicides, in reality they deal only 
 with the mortality of 18 States and 54 cities in nonregistration 
 States (those included in the figures for 1909) as a maximum. 
 
 From the annual Mortality Statistics of the Bureau of the Cen- 
 sus the mortality figures for suicides for the nine years, 1900- 
 1908, and the mortality figures for homicides for the ten years, 
 1 900- 1 909, have been compiled and are presented in detail in 
 Table II. The complete report for 1909 is not available at this 
 writing, and although the advance bulletin for 1909 does 
 present the total figures for both suicides and homicides in that 
 year it does not contain the necessary detail as to suicides by 
 ages and sexes requisite for comparison with such details for the 
 nine previous years included in Table II. For that reason, 
 the table does not present the suicide returns for 1909, although 
 it does contain the homicide returns for that year. 
 
 Owing to the more or less continuous change in the conforma- 
 tion of the Registration Area from year to year, comparisons 
 
i8 
 
 of the number of suicides and homicides reported would be not 
 only useless but positively misleading. The comparison of the 
 ratios of both to the varying population included in the Registra- 
 tion Area from year to year is reasonably fair — at least in the 
 case of suicides — however, although material increase in the urban 
 population therein included undoubtedly operates in the direc- 
 tion of at least a slight abnormal increase in both ratios to popula- 
 tion. Making allowance for these drawbacks, it appears that 
 in the entire Registration Area the rate of suicides per 1,000,000 
 of population in the four years, 1905-1908, was 163 as compared 
 with a ratio of only 131 in the five years, 1900-1904, thus making 
 the suicide rates for the Registration Area of the United States 
 for the nine years, 1900-1908, total up 147, as compared with 
 a suicide rate of only 93 per 1,000,000 population, in England 
 and Wales for the twenty years ending with 1908. This means 
 that, in so far as can now be ascertained , the suicide rate of this coun- 
 try is more than half again as high as that of Great Britain. And 
 in cities and rural districts alike, it seems to be steadily increasing 
 from year to year, with only very rare exceptions. In the regis- 
 tration cities of the country it increased from 146 per 1,000,000 
 population in the five years ending 1904 to 185 in the next four 
 years, and in the rural districts of the Registration Area in the 
 same periods the increase was from 90 to 123. In the cities 
 the increase amounted to more than 25 per cent., and in the rural 
 districts to nearly 40 per cent. Why these pronounced increases 
 in the narrow space of four years? What part in the increase 
 did neurotic books and newspapers play? 
 
 The apparent increase in the rural districts is particularly puz- 
 zling. It seems to be generally agreed that the American farmer, 
 as a class, has never been so prosperous as in recent years. Auto- 
 mobiles, telephones, a vastly improved farming equipment, 
 and various other fixtures of thoroughly modernized life have 
 now come within his reach. In the west, at least, as a class he 
 has changed from a borrower to a lender. Instead of working 
 on the farms, his sons and daughters in large numbers now go 
 to college. None of the penalties of the congested life of the 
 cities is imposed on him. But, nevertheless, at last reports 
 
19 
 
 the apparent percentage of deaths due to suicide in the case of men 
 in agricultural pursuits was exceptionally high. Why? Does the 
 sensationalism of the daily newspapers, which reach the agri- 
 cultural class to a larger extent at present than ever before, 
 have anything to do with the greatly increased suicide rate 
 among them? It may be recalled that in the article on "Civili- 
 zation and Suicide," by William Mathews, U,.D., in the "North 
 American Review," in 1891, from which I quoted on a previous 
 page, the statement was made that "one of the inevitable effects 
 of cultivation is to make men dissatisfied with poverty and 
 deprivation; to stimulate the demands for the comforts of life 
 which the mass of toilers cannot attain." Is it possible that the 
 great amount of space now devoted by cheap and sensational 
 newspapers to the possessors of great wealth, and their doings, 
 and also to the details of suicides, tends first to make dissatisfied 
 the ruralite who sees these papers, and, secondly, to imprint 
 on his mind the suggestion of suicide? In Table III a summary 
 of the relative importance of suicide as the cause of death at 
 various age periods in a number of occupations in the Regis- 
 tration Area in 1908 is presented, and the excess of the ratio 
 of deaths from suicide to deaths from all causes among the farm- 
 ing community is shown by this abstract from that table : 
 
 »5 «o 34 35 to 44 45 to 54 55 to 64 
 Occupations years. years. years. years. 
 
 Average ratios of deaths by suicide 
 
 to deaths from all causes in case 
 
 of males in all specified occupations 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 
 
 Ratios of deaths by suicide in case of 
 
 farmers, planters and farm laborers 107.9% 100.0% 113.2% 104.0% 
 
 The perverted use of printers' ink may or may not have some- 
 thing to do with the puzzling excess in the ratio of deaths by sui- 
 cide to total deaths from all causes in the case of the agricultural 
 community of the Registration Area, but that it has a great 
 deal to do with the alarming increase in the suicide death rate 
 in the Registration Area at large, in my judgment there is little 
 room for question. It has been suggested in some quarters, 
 I believe, that the large influx of immigrants of late years possibly 
 
accounts in part for the rapid rise in the suicide rate in the United 
 States, but an examination of the figures for suicide mortality 
 classified by birthplace of mothers in the case of the Eleventh 
 and Twelfth Censuses — for 1890 and 1900 — does not sustain that 
 proposition. The great bulk of the increase in this country's 
 foreign-born population in the decade 1890-1900 was due to the 
 large increase in immigrants from Italy, Russia and Poland, 
 no less than 787,496 of the total increase of 1,091,729, or 72.1 
 per cent., tracing back to these countries. The suicide rates 
 among peoples of these countries are exceptionally low, and by 
 far the largest proportion of suicides of foreign-bom residents 
 of the United States is to be found among the German-born 
 contingent. In the Census-year 1900 the German-born popula- 
 tion of this country was actually smaller, by about 120,000, 
 than in 1890, and consequently the marked increase in the number 
 and ratio of suicides in recent years cannot be explained on the 
 basis of an increase in the population hailing from the country 
 whose people are proverbially inclined toward suicide. 
 
 THE COINCIDENTAL INCREASE IN THE SUICIDE RATE AND DAILY 
 NEWSPAPER CIRCULATION IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 In the light of a casual study of the suicide rates of this country 
 as recorded in the returns for the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth 
 Censuses, I can see no indications that the increase in this coun- 
 try's suicide rate is to be accounted for by the large immigration 
 of recent years; apparently the explanation rests somewhere 
 in purely local conditions. According to the figures given in the 
 reports of the Twelfth Census the number of daily newspapers 
 published in the United States had increased from 254, in 1850, 
 to 2,226, in 1900, and the daily circulation of these newspapers 
 in the half century in question had increased from 758,454 to 
 15,102,156. On the assumption that the average family numbers 
 five persons, these figures mean that in 1850 the daily newspapers 
 of the United States circulated only one copy for each six families, 
 and that by 1900 they had so increased their combined circula- 
 tion as to place at least one copy in the hands of every family 
 in the land each day. Taking into account the fundamental 
 
21 
 
 change in the character of the pabulum served up by the average 
 daily newspaper of these twentieth century days as compared 
 with that supplied by the few dailies published in ante-bellum 
 times, the introduction of startling headlines in type proportioned 
 to the sensation-making possibilities of the suicides, murders, 
 robberies, embezzlements, or other crimes with which they deal, 
 the preponderance of so-called "news" of this character, and — 
 last, but by no means least — the lurid pictures and diagrams 
 attached to articles of this class by the "penny dreadfuls," surely 
 the tremendous upward move in point of number and circula- 
 tion, and the even more pronounced downward move in point 
 of character, of American daily journalism at large must be reck- 
 oned with as one of the foremost local conditions to which we 
 must look for at least partial explanation of the increase in sui- 
 cides and crimes in this country. The corresponding upward 
 and downward moves in the field of book publication, too, doubt- 
 less play their part in the increase in the mortality of suicide 
 and crime, but the sensationalism of degenerate daily journalism 
 is a much more ubiquitous and insidious factor, * Vv ' 
 
 In his keenly-analytical work on "The Diseases of Society 
 (The Vice and Crime Problem)," quotations from which have 
 been included in previous pages of this paper, Dr. G. Frank 
 Lydston clearly states an obvious truth in these words: "The 
 pubescent reader is in the greatest danger from unhealthful 
 reading. He or she is in a condition of unstable equilibrium — 
 adjustment to environment is not yet perfect; the emotions 
 are keyed to the highest pitch; the centres of ideation are plastic. 
 As the psychic twig is bent at this time, the cerebral tree is in- 
 deed inclined." It seems to me that these few words compre- 
 hensively summarize the principal power for evil of neurotic 
 books and newspapers— namely, that of injecting their poison 
 into the ultra-sensitive tissue of young minds in the formative 
 state. Doubtless the poison of suicidal and homicidal sugges- 
 tion has its effect on many more or less degenerate adult minds, 
 but its power for evil surely must be vastly greater in the field 
 of youth— with "the pubescent reader," as Dr. Lydston so suc- 
 cinctly puts it. 
 
22 
 
 For many and divers manifest reasons, I think it may safely 
 be assumed that the female sex at the adolescent age stands 
 in much more danger of being influenced by pernicious reading 
 than do boys on the threshold of manhood. Whether or no 
 this presumptive fact, and the greater freedom of young women 
 at that age in the United States than in foreign countries, are 
 in any way responsible for the striking difference in the per- 
 centages of female suicides at the early ages in this country and 
 Great Britain must necessarily be a matter of opinion. But a 
 fact it is— and a decidedly noteworthy fact — that the percent- 
 age of female suicides between ages 15 and 25 in this country 
 is almost, if not quite, twice as high as that in England and Wales. 
 In the mother country and in this country — and in a general 
 way throughout the civilized world — the ratios of female sui- 
 cides to total suicides do not materially differ. In England and 
 Wales in the twenty years ending with 1908 the ratio of female 
 suicides to total suicides was 25.03 per cent., and in the Regis- 
 tration Area of the United States for the nine years ending with 
 1908 the ratio was 23.62 per cent. But, when the female suicides 
 are studied by age-groups, a surprising variation is noted. In 
 the Registration Area of this country, in the nine years ending 
 with 1908 no less than 25.54 P er cent, of all female suicides Were 
 committed between ages 15-24, inclusive, whereas in England and 
 Wales in recent years the ratio of female suicides at those years to 
 total female suicides has been scarcely one-half as large. As shown 
 by one of the appended tables dealing with the suicide figures of 
 old New York (Manhattan and the Bronx) for the forty years 
 ending with 1908, the ratio of female suicides between ages 15 
 and 24, inclusive, in the metropolis has averaged 22.2 per cent, 
 for that long period, so that it would seem probable that through- 
 out the United States very close to one in every four female 
 suicides occurs under age 25 — in fact, in so far as the suicide 
 figures of the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Censuses may be taken 
 seriously, they show just about that ratio for all three Census 
 years, to wit, 1880, 1890 and 1900. It may, therefore, be accepted 
 as an established fact that about one in every four female sui- 
 cides in the United States kills herself before arriving at age 
 
23 
 
 25, whereas in England and Wales only about one in eight 
 so dies at that early age. 
 
 Do the sensational newspapers' neurotic accounts of suicides 
 — often set off with pictures of the suicides, weapons used, and 
 in short, a veritable chamber of horrors — have anything to do 
 with this startling female suicide rate at the early, impression- 
 able, ages in this country? Personally, I firmly believe that they 
 do. And so, probably, do the mawkish works of fiction which 
 often kill off their heroes or heroines by suicide. According 
 to the annual Mortality Statistics of the Bureau of the Census 
 for 1908, as presented in one of the appended tables, the highest 
 percentage of female suicides between ages 15 and 19 in the case 
 of occupied females is among, first, laundresses, and, secondly, 
 bookkeepers, clerks and copyists, and between ages 20 and 24 
 among servants, dress-makers and seamstresses — in other words, 
 among the very classes of Women who, for the most part, would 
 naturally read cheap newspapers and cheap books, if any at 
 all. 
 
 As I have previously mentioned, in his book on "Suicide and 
 Insanity," Dr. S. A. K. Strahan calls attention to the fact that 
 "the individual who terminates his (or her) life merely that, 
 like Eleazar, he (or she) may live in history or in the memories 
 of his (or her) fellows as the doer of at least one heroic act, is 
 generally but poorly qualified - for legitimately distinguishing 
 himself (or herself)." Many other specialists also have noted 
 the craving of neuropathic minds for cheap notoriety — even at 
 the price of suicide. It is easily believable that the wretched 
 little shop-girl, or laundress, or seamstress, or other mere child 
 of a woman, working for a pittance, and seeing no real future 
 ahead of her, would be powerfully influenced by the amount 
 of space and pictures which the yellow journals often give to 
 suicides, and gradually formulate the morbid idea that by killing 
 herself she not only could end all her troubles, but have her name 
 in big headlines, and maybe her picture, flashed on the journal- 
 istic screen before her fellows, and thus, as she sees it, be famous 
 for a day or so among them — as she sees no reason to hope that 
 she otherwise ever could be. It is not improbable that this 
 
24 
 
 hypothetical explanation would actually have applied to many 
 a poor working girl's suicide. 
 
 In Table II, appended to this paper are presented the official 
 figures of the Bureau of the Census for the reported number of 
 homicides in the Registration Area of the United States for 
 each year of the decade ending with 1909. I have worked out, 
 and attached to that table, the apparent ratios of homicide 
 per 1,000,000 population for each of the several years in ques- 
 tion, and also the comparative ratios for the two quinquennial 
 periods, 1900-1904 and 1905-1909. Could these returns be taken 
 at their face value, the homicide ratio would seem to have in- 
 creased with scarcely an exception from 21 per 1,000,000 popu- 
 lation in 1900 to 59 per 1,000,000 in 1909 — although in both 1907 
 and 1908 the ratios were higher than in 1909, respectively being 
 65 and 67 per 1,000,000. It is possible, if not probable, that 
 there has been an actual increase in the number of murders 
 per 1,000,000 population in the Registration Area in the last 
 decade, although the bulk of homicide statistics worthy of serious 
 consideration apparently indicates a decrease, rather than an 
 increase, in the crime of murder in civilized countries in recent 
 years. In any event, it is utterly improbable that the ratio of 
 homicides to population in the Registration Area of the United 
 States in 1905- 1909 was all but one and one-half times again 
 as high as that for the previous five years, as would be the case 
 if the official figures were to be taken literally. The comments 
 of the Bureau of the Census on this subject, in its annual Mor- 
 tality Statistics for 1908 (p. 76), are illuminating, and are as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 Deaths from violent causes in which no specific statement of suicide or 
 homicide is given are always tabulated as accidental. With a more careful 
 statement it is evident that some of these deaths would be tabulated as 
 suicides and some as homicides, and the large increase of the death rate from 
 the latter cause from the annual average for the five-year period 1901 to 
 1905 (2.9 per 100,000 population) to that for 1908 (6.7 per 100,000 popula- 
 tion) is largely, ij not entirely, due to greater precision in the statement of the 
 cause of death. It is unfortunate that this should be so, because the people 
 of the United States are very anxious for precise information in regard to 
 the increase or decrease of suicide or homicide as causes of death, but it 
 
25 
 
 should be remembered that the publication of annual mortality reports 
 for the United States was begun less than a decade ago, and that the prelimi- 
 nary work for the education of the reporting physicians, coroners, and others, 
 and for the adoption of uniform blanks and instructions and other requisites 
 for uniform and comparable returns is dependent upon the cooperation 
 of State and city authorities, which cooperation time is required to bring 
 about. Accurate mortality statistics cannot be created in a year or two, 
 but the returns are improving in precision and in a reasonable time their 
 results will be fully dependable, or as much so as those of any other country. 
 
 UNIFORMITY OF RISE AND FALL IN THE SUICIDE AND HOMICIDE 
 RATES OF MASSACHUSETTS AND ENGLAND AND WALES. 
 
 All things considered, perhaps the vital statistics of Massa- 
 chusetts are the most reliable now available for any part of this 
 country; they certainly do cover a longer stretch of years than 
 do any other American mortality returns which have been com- 
 piled on an annual basis; and probably they are most fairly sus- 
 ceptible of comparison with the vital statistics of the Registrar- 
 General's office for England and Wales. For these reasons 
 I have compiled from the annual reports of the Secretary of the 
 Massachusetts Commonwealth, on births, marriages and deaths 
 in Massachusetts, the suicide and homicide figures for the twenty- 
 five years ending with 1909, and present them in Table IV. 
 In brief, this tabulation shows that the suicide rate per 1,000,000 
 population in Massachusetts has steadily increased year by year, 
 with very few exceptions, from 93 in 1885 to 140 in 1909, and 
 that the homicide rate per 1,000,000 population was 36 in 1909 
 as compared with 23 in 1885. When the returns are analyzed 
 by five-year periods, however, of course much safer conclusions 
 are obtainable, and it then appears that the suicide ratios per 
 1,000,000 population by five-year periods were in order, 87, 
 104, 117, 121 and 135, and the homicide ratios 24, 27, 27, 24 
 and 30. As stated, the Massachusetts returns are fairly com- 
 parable with those for England and Wales, and if for that 
 purpose those for the twenty years ending with 1908 are divided 
 in two ten-year groups and comparison then made with the cor- 
 responding returns for similar ten-year periods in England and 
 Wales' experience, the showing is as follows: 
 
26 
 Decade, 1889-1898. Decade, 1899-1908. 
 
 Suicide rate Homicide rqte Suicide rate Homicide rate 
 
 Countries. per 1,000,000. per 1,000,000. per 1,000,000. per 1,000,000. 
 
 England and Wales. ... 86 10 99 9 
 
 Massachusetts 109 27 126 26 
 
 Apparently the experience of Massachusetts with both suicide 
 and homicide surprisingly tallied with that of England and Wales, 
 in so far as ten-year increases or decreases are concerned, though 
 showing a suicide rate more than one-quarter again as large, 
 and a homicide rate almost three times as large, the Massachu- 
 setts suicide rate for the later decade showing an increase of 
 15.6 per cent, over that for the earlier decade, as compared 
 with an increase of 14.7 per cent, in the suicide rate of England 
 and Wales measured by the same decades, and a decrease of 
 3.7 per cent, in the homicide rate per 1,000,000 population, as 
 compared with a decrease of 10.9 per cent, in England and Wales. 
 This remarkable correspondence in the rise or fall of suicide 
 and homicide rates in two English-speaking communities on 
 different sides of the Atlantic, one of which has a population 
 almost twelve times as large as the other — especially in view 
 of the fact that it rests on precisely similar compilations for 
 identical periods of no less than ten years each — can only be 
 regarded as fairly indicative of the actual tendency of the times 
 in the case of both suicide and homicide rates in English-speaking 
 countries. That being the case, there would seem to be practic- 
 ally no reason to question that, making full allowance for slight 
 changes in registration methods and consequent improvement 
 in accuracy of returns, the suicide rate is steadily going up, and 
 the homicide rate slowly going down — the latter showing tally- 
 ing with the statement of the Bureau of the Census which I have 
 cited on a previous page to the effect that "the large increase 
 of the death rate from the latter cause (homicide) is largely 
 i'l not entirely due to greater precision in the statement of the cause 
 of death." That is to say, there is at least some reason for hoping, 
 if not believing, that the apparent increase of nearly one and 
 one-half times in the homicide rate of the Registration Area 
 of the United States in 1905- 1909 as compared with 1900- 1904 
 
2 7 
 
 is really due to improvement in registration methods, and does 
 not indicate any actual increase whatsoever in the homicide 
 rate in this country. 
 
 However encouraging this possible assumption may be, it 
 cannot be overlooked that the suicide rate of Massachusetts is 
 more than one-quarter again as large, and the homicide rate 
 nearly three times as large, as are the corresponding rates of 
 England and Wales. Again, why this unfortunate American 
 lead? How large a share of the responsibility for it rests on the 
 cheap books and newspapers of this country, and how much 
 larger would the apparent decrease in the homicide rate of Massa- 
 chusetts have been but for that same omnipresent pernicious 
 influence? 
 
 I have appended, in Table V, a compilation of the suicide 
 figures of "Old New York" — that is to say, for the population 
 of the Boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx — for the forty- 
 four years ending with 1909, and in Table VI supplement those 
 figures with the total number and ratio of suicides in 18 70- 1909 
 by years with an analysis of the suicides classified by sexes and 
 ages, and their several ratios appended. In a general way, 
 these tables may be summarized at this point in the single state- 
 ment that they show that the suicide rates per 1,000,000 popula- 
 tion in Manhattan and the Bronx for the four decades beginning 
 with 1870 and ending with 1909 have respectively been 132, 
 149, 191 and 215, thus materially exceeding those for the Regis- 
 tration Area, or the Registration Cities, of the United States, 
 and all but doubling those of Massachusetts in the latter two 
 decades, when the New York rates were respectively 191 and 
 215, as against rates of 109 and 126 for Massachusetts. The 
 figures in Table VI are interesting for their tracing by decades of 
 the relative suicide mortality of females under age 25, and thus 
 affording specific evidence as to the suicide rate at the earlier 
 ages among girls and young women in the metropolis of the 
 country, which has not only the largest and most heterogeneous 
 population of any city on the Western Continent but is palpably 
 the city in which by far the largest number of young women 
 are in daily contact with the most sensational papers in America, 
 
> 
 
 28 
 
 and in almost daily contact with the largest volume of cheap, 
 pernicious literature. Those who are interested in the details 
 of this study of an interesting phase of the subject may possibly 
 find considerable light on it in the tables in question, which, 
 in a nutshell, show that 22.2 per cent, of all the female suicides 
 in Manhattan and the Bronx in the forty years ending with 1909 
 died at their own hands before reaching the age of 25 years — or, 
 more specifically, between the ages of 15 and 25. For how many 
 of these 586 self-inflicted deaths in mere childhood were neurotic 
 books and sensational newspapers responsible ? There is no telling . 
 The final table in the series, Table VII, presents the suicide 
 rates per 1,000,000 of population for some of the leading European 
 countries for the last fifty years of the nineteenth century, by 
 ten-year periods, and has been compiled from Gustav Sundbarg's 
 "Apercus Statistiques Internationaux (Onzieme Annee, 1908). 
 It shows that the increase in the suicide rate has practically been 
 both universal and continuous. 
 
 POSSIBLE STARTING-POINTS FOR THE NEUROTIC BOOK AND NEWS- 
 PAPER LITERATURE OF MODERN TIMES. 
 
 It would be an exceedingly difficult matter, in fact impossi- 
 ble, to put one's finger on the particular book whicb set the pace 
 for the modern school of neurotic literature specializing, so to 
 speak, in suicide and crime. In his "Principles of Sociology," 
 Herbert Spencer declared that "a complete outline of the original 
 external factors implies a knowledge of the past which we have 
 not got, and are not likely to get. We must infer that it is hope- 
 less to trace back the external factors of social phenomena to 
 anything like their first forms." Prurient literature dates back 
 to the "time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the 
 contrary." Boccaccio's "Decameron" was written nearly seven 
 hundred years ago, and yet the bulk, if not all, of its stories have 
 been proven mere re- writes of the stories of previous ages. Per- 
 haps the dual suicide of Romeo and Juliet, which Shakespeare 
 immortalized more than three hundred years ago, might be re- 
 garded as the foremost precedent for modern stage tragedies 
 with suicidal endings, and probably Goethe's "Leiden des jungen 
 
29 
 
 Werther" ("The Sorrows of Young Werther"), which made its 
 appearance in 1774, might be characterized as the most conspic- 
 uous pioneer in the comparatively modern field of fiction tainted 
 with suicidal philosophy. This "mawkish, sentimental novel," 
 as it has aptly been characterized, dealt with the supposed thoughts 
 and experiences of a morbid youth who had fallen in love with 
 "Charlotte," who marries another man; and finally in love-sick 
 despair "Werther" sends his servant to her husband, borrows the 
 pistols whose possibilities he has often discussed with the husband, 
 and kills himself. Perhaps the immediate prompting of the 
 book was the suicide of a young friend of Goethe's, by name 
 Jerusalem, but there is no question that in "young Werther" 
 Goethe was really picturing himself at that stage of his life, and 
 the "Charlotte" of the story was the wife of his friend Kestner. 
 In his defense it may be said that he was but twenty-five when 
 he put this pessimistic philosophy of his youth in writing, but 
 the unfortunate production became extremely popular through- 
 out Europe, made him famous, and scattered broadcast the 
 poison of the philosophy completely summarized in this sentence 
 which Carlyle quotes from "The Sorrows of Young Werther": 
 "And then, hemmed in as he [man] is, he ever keeps in his heart 
 the sweet feeling of freedom, and that this dungeon — can be left 
 when he likes." 
 
 It might almost be said that this pessimistic production of neurotic 
 youth founded a new school of fiction— and an exceedingly per- 
 nicious one — which has appallingly expanded in the last 137 
 years. As one writer puts it: "D'Annunzio is finding infinite 
 pleasure in dissecting moral rottenness and preaching the glory 
 of self-slaughter. Pessimism is rampant in the works of Hart- 
 mann, Schopenhauer, Ibsen, Maeterlinck and Nietzsche. All 
 these have the ills and miseries of life as their leading theme. 
 While they do not preach suicide, their writings tend to instill 
 disgust with life." In addition to these, and many other writers 
 of real ability who really have preached, directly or indirectly, 
 in novels or philosophical works, the doctrine of suicide, there 
 has been a veritable shoal of talentless imitators. And, as Dr. 
 Lydston remarks: "The average lay reader can but be injured 
 
30 
 
 by prurient realism; can only be made mentally and morally 
 sick by the vagaries of certain literary paranoiacs." vv 
 
 For at least half a century, and perhaps longer, there have been 
 sporadic instances of prurient, and crime-inspiring, periodicals, 
 but the new school of so-called American "yellow journalism" 
 dates back only about twenty-five years. In 1883, Joseph 
 Pulitzer purchased the semi-moribund New York "World," 
 at once set out to make it sensational and thereby attract atten- 
 tion and business to it, and regalvanize it as it were; and thus, 
 in the judgment of all competent observers, was laid the corner- 
 stone of modern "yellow journalism." It is entirely possible 
 that conditions were ripe for the creation of a new school of jour- 
 nalism on these lines, and very probably some one else would 
 have blazed the path had not Mr. Pulitzer done so. As jour- 
 nalistic history reads, however, his priority of claim is indisputable. 
 The "World" soon began to attract general attention throughout 
 the country, especially envious attention among the publishers 
 of many other newspapers, obviously was coining money, and, 
 one by one, newspapers in all sections of the country conceived 
 the idea that the Biblical moral — sadly misapplied in this case — 
 "go and do thou likewise," suggested the only means of winning 
 out in the sharp newspaper competition of the times. Then 
 William Randolph Hearst came along, purchased from Mr. 
 Pulitzer's brother, Albert Pulitzer, the New York "Journal," 
 gradually garnered in "the bright young men" of the "World's" 
 staff most proficient in the art of newspaper-thrilling perform- 
 ance, and promptly out-Pulitzered Pulitzer. Thus it was, in 
 brief, that the sensational type of American newspapers of the 
 present day was spawned, and hatched broadcast, North, South, 
 East and West. To be sure, by no means all established American 
 newspapers succumbed to the business temptation; fortunately, 
 there is still a minority of clean, wholesome, daily newspapers 
 in this country, which do not regard the selection and handling 
 of the news of the day in such a way as to create a series of con- 
 tinuously-intensifying daily thrills as the indispensable require- 
 ment for a great or successful newspaper. But, unfortunately, 
 the newspapers of this old-school type, decently brought down 
 
3i 
 
 to date, are now in a decided minority, and the neurotics, with 
 their daily avalanches of big-type headlines, mawkish pictures 
 and painfully-padded stories of crimes and suicides, are unques- 
 tionably in the journalistic saddle. J 
 
 At the head of the blank accompanying the invitation for the 
 preparation of this paper, I note this request: "If you know of 
 any suicide, murder, rape, abortion, or other crime against the 
 person, attempted or consummated, that in your judgment 
 was due to accounts of similar crime in the newspapers, state 
 number of cases, specifying crime, and date as nearly as possi- 
 ble." A careful research of newspaper files for the last twenty- 
 five years undoubtedly would reveal hundreds of such cases, 
 but it is child's play to bother with minnows when whales are 
 right at hand. The most comprehensive case of the kind of which 
 I am personally aware was the publication in the New York 
 "World" of Tuesday, August 7, 1894, of a long article by Col. 
 Robert G. Ingersoll under the heading: "Is Suicide a Sin?" 
 This fair-and-square launching of a discussion of the supposed 
 pros and coris of suicide began on the last column of the front 
 page — for many years recognized by metropolitan editors as the 
 proper starting-point for the leading article of each issue — 
 occupied about two and one-half columns of space, and had 
 beneath it a fac-simile of the autograph signature of Col. Inger- 
 soll. It naturally attracted wide-spread attention, and in the 
 "World" of August oth, there appeared about 2 1 / i columns 
 of letters under the heading: "Is Suicide a Sin or Not?" In 
 at least ten subsequent issues the "World" gave a great deal of 
 space to further discussion of the subject, and my examination 
 of the files has revealed considerably more than thirty columns 
 of matter on the subject within two weeks, by way of aftermath 
 for Col. Ingersoll 's original article. 
 
 COE. INGERSOEL'S UNFORTUNATE BROADSIDE DEFENSE OF SUICIDE. 
 
 In the early stages of the discussion the "New York Times" 
 had raised question as to whether Col. Ingersoll had ever said 
 what he was reported to have said, or written, but in the "World" 
 of August 31st there was published the fac-simile of an autograph 
 
32 
 
 letter from Col. Ingersoll, in which he said: "The article was 
 written by me, and every word in it about suicide was published 
 exactly as written." In its issue of August 28th, the "Times" 
 had announced: "The publication of the original article in the 
 newspaper and the series in its wake have been followed by- an 
 unprecedented number of suicides," and three days later (in 
 its issue of September 1st) added this statement: 
 
 In view of Col. Ingersoll's voluntary statement that he was the author of 
 the letter, it is interesting to review some of the sentiments to which he 
 subscribes?**'^mong other things, he^set forth these ideas in his original 
 communication, which was published on Aug. 7 : "The old idea was that 
 God made us and placed us here for a purpose, and that it was our duty to 
 remain until He called us. The world is outgrowing this absurdity. 
 
 "Why should the poor wretch stay and suffer? A little morphine would 
 give him sleep — the agony would be forgotten, and he would pass unconsciously 
 from happy dreams to painless death. 
 
 "Why should a man sentenced to imprisonment of life hesitate to still 
 his heart? The grave is better than the cell. Sleep is sweeter than the 
 ache of toil. The dead have no masters. 
 
 "So the poor girl, betrayed and deserted, the door of home closed against 
 her, the faces of friends averted, no hand that will help, no eye that will 
 soften with pity, the future an abyss filled with monstrous shapes of dread 
 and fear, her mind racked by fragments of thoughts like clouds broken by 
 storm, pursued, surrounded by the serpents of remorse, flying from horrors 
 too great to bear, rushes with joy through the welcome door of death. 
 
 "Undoubtedly there are many cases of perfectly justifiable suicide — cases 
 in which not to end life would be a mistake, sometimes almost a crime. 
 
 "As to the necessity of death, each must decide for himself. And if a 
 man honestly decides that death is best — best for him and others — and 
 acts upon the decision, why should he be blamed? 
 
 "Certainly the man who kills himself is not a physical coward. It seems 
 certain that the man who commits suicide, who 'does the thing that stops 
 all other deeds, that shackles accidents and bolts up change,' is not lacking 
 in physical courage. 
 
 "To the hopelessly imprisoned — to the dishonored and despised — to those 
 who have failed, who have no future, no hope — to the abandoned, the broken- 
 hearted, to those who are only remnants and fragments of men and women 
 — how consoling, how enchanting is the thought of death." 
 
 These amazing utterances of Col. Ingersoll's might be said 
 to be a repetition of the neurotic philosophy of "The Sorrows 
 of Young Werther," raised to the nth power. Coming, as they 
 did, from a man whose words were as widely read as were Col. 
 
33 
 
 IngersoU's— no matter how emphatically people might differ 
 with his opinions — published in a great metropolitan newspaper 
 with a tabulation running into hundreds of thousands, and 
 followed at close range with column after column of comment 
 and discussion, could any sane man for a moment doubt that the 
 millions of people who read them included a considerable number 
 of neurotics, or degenerates, having a predisposition to suicide, 
 who, as a result, sooner or later took their lives under this sug- 
 gestion, which their unbalanced brains must have regarded as 
 almost mandatory? This manifestation of the poisonous power 
 of misused printers' ink would not necessarily come immediately 
 however, but might spread out thin over many months or years. 
 As Lydston has said: "The result [of suggestion] depends upon 
 the environment and existing mental bias of the subject." Even 
 the man predisposed to suicide who read every word of the 
 Ingersollian discussion of suicide may not at that time, or maybe 
 not for years after, have been in just the mental condition requisite 
 to screw his courage up to the act of self-killing. He may have 
 treasured the clippings of the discussion, and frequently reread 
 and pondered on them^or, on the other hand, he may not have 
 clipped a single line of the printed matter, but have done even 
 worse, that is to say, have sunk deep in his memory the most 
 insidious points of Col. Ingersoll's sophistry, and repeatedly 
 brought them out for mental reexamination whenever in par- 
 ticularly pessimistic humor. There is a great difference between 
 those two poisons, prussic acid and misused printers' ink; both 
 are deadly in their effects, but the first is instantaneous in its 
 action, and the second is much more apt to prove slow-acting. 
 
 The "New York Times" was decidedly inaccurate in its hasty 
 statement of August 28, 1894, to the effect that "the publication 
 of the original article [of Col. Ingersoll's] in the newspaper and 
 the series in its wake have been followed by an Unprecedented 
 number of suicides." Col. Ingersoll's original article on suicide 
 was published in the New York "World" of August 7th, or only 
 twenty-one days prior to the publication of the above comment 
 in the "Times." Presumably the commentator was referring 
 to "an unprecedented number of suicides" in the city in which 
 
34 
 
 the article by Col. Ingersoll was published, and in that event if 
 its statement was correct it should be readily susceptible of 
 positive proof by the vital statistics of the Bureau of Records 
 of the Department of Health of the City of New York. I have 
 carefully examined the records in question by weeks, and as will 
 be noted by the transcript herewith appended they not only do 
 not prove the truth of the "Times's" statement, but manifestly 
 disprove it. In 1894, the City of New York consisted of the 
 present Boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, and here is a 
 complete record of the number of suicides in the City of New York 
 by Weeks for the last five months of the year 1894 and the years 
 immediately preceding and following : 
 
 
 a 
 
 * 
 
 V ■ 
 
 Subsequent weeks — or fraction of week — in order for 
 
 05 rrl 
 
 4!° 
 
 
 & m 
 
 balance of the year. 
 
 "fi 
 
 u 
 at 
 V 
 
 «3 
 
 
 S.S 
 
 S» 
 
 6. 
 
 
 H 
 
 1893 
 
 9 
 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 14 
 
 13 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 9 
 
 7 
 
 11 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 5 
 
 
 157 
 
 I894 
 
 5 
 
 *q 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 5 
 
 11 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 10 
 
 9 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 134 
 
 1895 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 
 11 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 8 
 
 6 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 8 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 11 
 
 9 
 
 1 
 
 153 
 
 The week in 1894 in which Col. Ingersoll's original article ap- 
 peared ended August 1 ith.and I have starred (*) it in the preceding 
 tabulation. The aggregate of recorded suicides in the City of New 
 York in that week was 9, in the corresponding week of the previous 
 year numbered 7, and in the corresponding week of the following 
 year numbered 6. Obviously there was no more than the ordi- 
 nary weekly fluctuation in those corresponding weeks of August 
 in the three years in question. If the totals for the four weeks 
 immediately following in each case are compared, it will be found 
 that in those four weeks in 1893 there were 25 suicides, and in 
 the four weeks in question in 1895 there were 29 suicides, as 
 compared with 22 suicides in the four weeks of 1894, immediately 
 following the week in which Col. Ingersoll's article appeared. 
 Even the total number of suicides in New York for the balance 
 of the year 1894 was smaller than the total for the corresponding 
 period in either 1893 or 1895. Manifestly, therefore, there was 
 
35 
 
 no foundation for the "Time's" statement to the effect that the 
 original article and the attendant series of articles "have been 
 followed by an unprecedented number of suicides," at least not 
 in the city in which the articles appeared. 
 
 That many of the suicides in subsequent months or years 
 were directly or indirectly due to Col. Ingersofl's unfortunate 
 promulgation of his pernicious sophistry is doubtless true. In 
 fact, in no less than five subsequently published interviews which 
 appeared in various newspapers he was practically called upon 
 to defend himself on that charge. In the last of that series of 
 interviews, published in the Chicago "Inter-Ocean," in March, 
 1897, the discussion of this phase of the subject was put in the 
 form of question and answer, and included this question and 
 answer : 
 
 Question. Since you expounded your justification of suicide, Colonel, 
 I believe you have had some cases of suicide laid at your door? 
 
 Answer. Oh, yes. Every suicide that has happened since that time has 
 been charged to me. I don't know how the people account for the suicides 
 before my time. I have not yet heard of my being charged with the death 
 of Cato, but that may yet come to pass. I was reading the other day that 
 the rate of suicide in Germany is increasing. I suppose my article has been 
 translated into German. "~ 
 
 In so far as specific cases of suicides directly traceable to the 
 Ingersoll discussion in 1894 are concerned, I have noted but 
 two alleged in the current files of other New York newspapers, 
 though doubtless an exhaustive examination of all the files 
 would discover some others. In its issue of August 27, 1894, 
 the "New York Times" refers to the suicide on August 24th of 
 a Mrs. Emma R. Gould, of Brooklyn, and says: "She had read 
 Col. Ingersoll's article [of August 7th] on suicide, and every line 
 that was printed in comment." This statement apparently 
 is a mere matter of assertion, and no proof of its accuracy accom- 
 panied it. The "Times" also stated that Julius De Marcus, 
 who had killed Juliette Founder, a married woman, in Central 
 Park, on August 21st, and then killed himself, was found to have 
 in his pockets a clipping from the "World"— presumably one of an 
 article from the suicide series. But these sporadic and isolated 
 cases of suicide in which there is printed or written evidence that 
 
36 
 
 the self-killing was a matter of imitation or suggestion, are merely 
 confirmatory proofs of an obvious and well known fact. One 
 swallow does not prove a summer; neither does one case in per- 
 haps a hundred suicides prove the perniciously-suggestive power 
 of printers' ink. There are many much more comprehensive, 
 and much more convincing, proofs. 
 
 It seems to me that the case against the vicious influence of 
 neurotic books and newspapers in materially contributing to 
 the mortality of suicide and crime has long since been conclusively 
 proven, and that no further evidence is necessary. By way of 
 a final contribution to the records of the case, however, I have 
 thought it might be Worth while to cite just a few of the scores 
 of cases of suggestive newspaper discussion in extenso of suicide 
 which I have come across in my casual examination of the files 
 of metropolitan Sunday editions and so-called "magazine-sec- 
 tions" of certain great daily newspapers for several years. The 
 following headlines are those appearing over so-called "special 
 articles," in several cases printed in lurid colors, and often accom- 
 panied by garish pictures. In my notes I have the dates of 
 these articles and the names of the papers in which they appeared, 
 but I think the newspapers in question already have quite 
 enough on their hypothetical consciences, and as no useful purpose 
 would be served by naming the offender in each case, I have 
 omitted names. Here are a few of the exhibits from the literary 
 chamber of horrors of sensational American journalism for the 
 last fifteen or twenty years, in each case the headlines being 
 quoted verbatim et literatim: "That Pathetic Mystery of Suicide 
 on the Eve of Marriage — What Secret Hides Behind the Re- 
 curring Tragedies of Self-Destruction at the Brink of Nuptial 
 Union, Even where Every Known Promise Is for a Happy Future ;" 
 "That Frightful Scream Haunted Me;" "The City of the Suicide 
 Germ;" "Chain of Suicides Strangely Arise from Love Match;" 
 "The Desire for Life Decreasing;" "What We Say to the Des- 
 perate;" "To Solve the Sad Puzzle of Suicide;" "Does Death 
 End All?" 
 
 What would, what must, be the effect of mere headlines and 
 grewsome pictures on this order, let alone the reading of the 
 
37 
 
 articles, on neurotic minds predisposed to suicide? Can there 
 be but one answer to that question? 
 
 Table I. 1 — Suicides and Homicides in England and Wales for the 
 Twenty Years, 1889-1908, and Their Ratios per 1,000,000 of Popula- 
 tion, Classified by Sexes, Years and Decennial Periods. 
 
 
 
 Suicides. 
 
 
 Homicides. 
 
 
 Total deaths 
 by both causes 
 
 Suicides. Homicic 
 
 
 
 Males. 
 
 Females. 
 
 Males. 
 
 Femal 
 
 es. 
 
 ies. 
 
 •0 
 
 O 
 
 «S 
 ix 
 
 u 
 
 a 
 9 
 55 
 
 
 
 u 
 V 
 
 a 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 Number. 
 Ratio. 
 
 u 
 
 u 
 
 a 
 3 
 55 
 
 6 
 
 a 
 3 
 
 55 
 
 Ratio. 
 
 Number . 
 
 
 
 1889 
 
 1626 
 
 Il8 
 
 544 
 
 37 
 
 159 12 
 
 131 
 
 9 
 
 2170 
 
 76 290 
 
 10 
 
 1890 
 
 1635 
 
 117 
 
 570 
 
 38 
 
 160 II 
 
 126 
 
 9 
 
 2205 
 
 77 286 
 
 10 
 
 1891 
 
 1863 
 
 132 
 
 620 
 
 41 
 
 158 II 
 
 157 
 
 10 
 
 2483 
 
 85 315 
 
 11 
 
 1892 
 
 1907 
 
 133 
 
 676 
 
 44 
 
 153 II 
 
 147 
 
 10 
 
 2583 
 
 88 300 
 
 10 
 
 1893 
 
 1940 
 
 135 
 
 659 
 
 43 
 
 185 13 
 
 152 
 
 10 
 
 2599 
 
 87 337 
 
 II 
 
 1894 
 
 2052 
 
 141 
 
 677 
 
 44 
 
 162 II 
 
 136 
 
 9 
 
 2729 
 
 91 298 
 
 10 
 
 1895 
 
 2071 
 
 I4O 
 
 726 
 
 46 
 
 165 11 
 
 150 
 
 10 
 
 2797 
 
 92 315 
 
 10 
 
 1896 
 
 1979 
 
 132 
 
 677 
 
 42 
 
 154 10 
 
 147 
 
 9 
 
 2656 
 
 86 301 
 
 10 
 
 1897 
 
 2090 
 
 139 
 
 702 
 
 44 
 
 159 11 
 
 132 
 
 8 
 
 2792 
 
 90 291 
 
 9 
 
 1898 
 
 2166 
 
 I42 
 
 7'i 
 
 44 
 
 162 II 
 
 145 
 
 9 
 
 2877 
 
 91 3°7 
 
 10 
 
 Decade 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1889-1898 
 
 19. 329 
 
 133 
 
 6,562 
 
 42 
 
 1,617 II 
 
 1.423 
 
 9 5 
 
 '5.891 
 
 86 3, 040 
 
 10 
 
 1899 
 
 2121 
 
 138 
 
 723 
 
 44 
 
 143 9 
 
 148 
 
 9 
 
 2844 
 
 89 291 
 
 9 
 
 1900 
 
 2166 
 
 139 
 
 730 
 
 44 
 
 139 9 
 
 139 
 
 8 
 
 2896 
 
 90 278 
 
 9 
 
 1901 
 
 2318 
 
 147 
 
 803 
 
 48 
 
 161 10 
 
 175 
 
 10 
 
 3121 
 
 96 336 
 
 10 
 
 1902 
 
 2460 
 
 154 
 
 807 
 
 47 
 
 131 8 
 
 166 
 
 10 
 
 3267 
 
 99 297 
 
 9 
 
 1903 
 
 2640 164 
 
 871 
 
 51 
 
 137 8 
 
 158 
 
 9 
 
 35i 1 
 
 105 295 
 
 9 
 
 i.904 
 
 2523 
 
 154 
 
 822 
 
 47 
 
 176 11 
 
 151 
 
 9 
 
 3345 
 
 99 327 
 
 10 
 
 I9°5 
 
 2683 
 
 163 
 
 862 
 
 49 
 
 133 8 
 
 169 
 
 10 
 
 3545 
 
 104 302 
 
 9 
 
 1906 
 
 2655 
 
 159 
 
 797 
 
 45 
 
 140 8 
 
 144 
 
 8 
 
 3452 
 
 100 284 
 
 8 
 
 1907 
 
 2632 
 
 156 
 
 901 
 
 5° 
 
 139 8 
 
 126 
 
 7 
 
 3533 
 
 101 265 
 
 8 
 
 1908 
 
 2844 
 
 166 
 
 934 
 
 51 
 
 152 9 
 
 159 
 
 9 
 
 3778 
 
 107 311 
 
 9 
 
 Decade 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1899-1908 
 
 25. 042 
 
 154 
 
 8,2 5 C 
 
 . 48 
 
 1. 45i 9 
 
 1.535 
 
 9 33. 292 
 
 99 2, 986 
 
 9 
 
 Totals, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Twenty 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Years, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1889-1908 
 
 44.371 
 
 I44 
 
 14, 812 
 
 45 
 
 3,068 10 
 
 2,958 
 
 9 
 
 59. 18; 
 
 ( 93 6,026 
 
 10 
 
 1 Compiled from 
 
 the seventy-first annual report of the Registrar-General of births, 
 
 deaths and marriages 
 
 in England and Wales (1908), pp. 34. et seq 
 
 '. 
 
 
 
38 
 
 Table III. 1 — Relative Importance op Suicide as a Cause of Death at 
 Certain Age-Periods for Each Occupation as Compared with Its 
 Average Importance for the Same Age-Periods in All Specified Occu- 
 pations in the Registration Area of the United States in 1908. 
 
 „ , 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-°4 
 
 Male occupations. years. years. years. years. 
 
 Bankers, brokers and officials of companies ... 223.7 2 10 . 3 2 10 . 5 108 . o 
 
 Butchers 202.6 110. 3 34.2 108.0 
 
 Bakers and confectioners 184.2 117. 9 144.7 116. 
 
 Collectors, auctioneers and agents 173-7 1538 184.2 96.0 
 
 Saloon keepers, liquor dealers, bartenders, and 
 
 restaurant keepers 160.5 io 7-7 II 5& 168.0 
 
 Lawyers 155-3 202.6 142 . 1 108.0 
 
 Public Entertainment 147 .4 105 .1 1 10 . 5 156 .0 
 
 Tailors 142.1 125.6 160.5 160.0 
 
 Servants 134.2 125.6 86.8 156.0 
 
 Iron and steel workers 128.9 100. o 65.8 132.0 
 
 Mercantile and trading 126.3 x 35-9 "3.2 100. o 
 
 Merchants and dealers 126.3 J 56-4 no. 5 80.0 
 
 Personal service, police and military 126.3 IJ S -4 io 7 -9 80.0 
 
 Machinists I2 3-7 130.8 147.4 116.0 
 
 Barbers and hairdressers 115.8 117. 9 86.8 100. o 
 
 Manufacturing and mechanical industry n 5 . 8 102. 6 no. 5 116. o 
 
 Professional service 113. 2 153 . 8 107 .9 84 . o 
 
 Engineers and surveyors 113.2 105. 1 134.2 76.0 
 
 Engineers and firemen (not locomotive) no. 5 51 .3 76.3 40.0 
 
 Plumbers, and gas and steam fitters no. 5 71.8 60.5 120.0 
 
 Farmers, planters and farm laborers io 7-9 100. o 113. 2 104.0 
 
 Clerical and official 100. o 130.8 131 .6 96.0 
 
 Boot and shoe makers 100. o 84.6 105.3 140.0 
 
 Average, all Specified Occupations 100. o 100. o 100. o 100. o 
 
 Compositors, printers and pressmen 100. o 89.7 50.0 88.0 
 
 Gardeners, florists, nurserymen and vine- 
 growers 100. o 107.7 81.6 124.0 
 
 Carpenters and joiners 97-4 125.6 163.2 140.0 
 
 Painters, glaziers and varnishers 94-7 I 38-5 no. 5 92.0 
 
 Mill and factory operatives (textiles) 92.1 94-9 118. 4 100. o 
 
 Agriculture, transportation and other outdoor 92.1 79.5 89.5 100. o 
 
 Draymen, hackmen, teamsters, etc 92. 1 66.7 63.2 108.0 
 
 Policemen, watchmen and detectives 89 . 5 120 . 5 81.6 84 .0 
 
 Bookkeepers, clerks and copyists 86.8 117. 9 102.6 112. o 
 
 Sailors, pilots, fishermen and oystermen 86.8 94-9 71 . 1 48.0 
 
 Physicians and surgeons 73.7 115. 4 55-3 96.0 
 
 Laboring and servant 73.7 76.9 68.4 76.0 
 
 1 Compiled from the Bureau of the Census's annual report of mortality statistics for 
 1903 (pp. 322. et scq.). 
 
39 
 Table III— (Continued). 
 
 „ . ., »5-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 
 Male occupations, years, years, years. years. 
 
 Blacksmiths 68.4 112. 8 123.7 1320 
 
 Laborers (not agricultural) 65.8 69.2 68.4 68.0 
 
 Miners and quarrymen 57.9 4T.0 36.8 80.0 
 
 Clergymen 52.6 71.8 63.2 32.0 
 
 Steam-railroad employees 52.6 48.7 52.6 56.0 
 
 Masons (brick and stone) 47.4 82.1 89.5 100.0 
 
 , ,. "5-19 20-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-«4 
 
 Female occupations. years. years, years. years. years, years. 
 
 Laundresses 116. 7 79.3 ... 23.5 81.8 100. o 
 
 Bookkeepers, clerks and copy- 
 ists H3-9 5i-7 82.6 35.3 281.8 
 
 Dressmakers and seamstresses. 105.6 113. 8 95.7 123.5 109. 1 114.3 
 
 Servants 100. o 117. 2 95.7 82.4 72.7 71.4 
 
 Average, all Specified Oc- 
 cupations 100. o 100. o 100. o 100. o 100. o 100.0 
 
 Teachers in schools 75.9 113. o 111.8 118. 2 257.1 
 
 Table IV. 1 — Suicides and Homicides in Massachusetts for the Twenty- 
 five Years, 1885-1909, and Ratios per 1,000,000 Population, Classi- 
 fied by Years and Five-Year Periods. 
 
 Suicides. Homicides. 
 
 Years and Ratio Ratio 
 
 periods. Number, per 1,000,000. Number. per 1,000,000. Population. 
 
 1885 181 93 45 23 1,942,141 
 
 1886 157 79 47 23 1,998,174 
 
 1887 173 84 52 25 2,055,821 
 
 1888 190 90 52 25 2,115,131 
 
 1889 199 9 1 5 1 2 3 2 . ^G. '53 
 
 Five-Year 
 Period, 
 1885-1889 900 87 247 24 
 
 1890 196 88 35 l6 2.238,943 
 
 1891 187 82 60 26 2,288,911 
 
 1892 273 117 72 3i 2,339,994 
 
 1893 290 121 76 32 2,392,217 
 
 1894 270 no 68 28 2,445,605 
 
 1 Compiled from annual reports of Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth. 
 
4° 
 
 
 
 Table IV- 
 
 -{Continued) 
 
 
 
 
 
 Suicides. 
 
 Homicides. 
 
 
 Years and 
 
 
 Ratio 
 
 
 Ratio 
 
 
 periods. 
 
 Number, per 1,000,000. 
 
 Number. 
 
 per 1,000,000. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Five- Year 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Period, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1890-1894 
 
 I, 216 
 
 104 
 
 311 
 
 27 
 3° 
 
 
 1895 
 
 281 
 
 112 
 
 74 
 
 j:,SOO, 183 
 
 1896 
 
 318 
 
 124 
 
 74 
 
 29 
 
 2,558,437 
 
 1897 
 
 285 
 
 IO9 
 
 70 
 
 27 
 
 2,618,048 
 
 1898 
 
 331 
 
 124 
 
 79 
 
 29 
 
 2,679,048 
 
 1899 
 
 319 
 
 Il6 
 
 57 
 
 21 
 
 2,741,470 
 
 Five-Year 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Period, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1895-1898 
 
 1.534 
 322 
 
 117 
 
 354 
 
 27 
 
 
 
 1900 
 
 "5 
 
 61 
 
 22 
 
 2,805,346 
 
 1901 
 
 382 
 
 134 
 
 65 
 
 23 
 
 2, 843, 927 
 
 1902 
 
 324 
 
 112 
 
 76 
 
 26 
 
 2,883,030 
 
 1903 
 
 367 
 
 126 
 
 74 
 
 25 
 
 2,922,671 
 
 1904 
 
 353 
 
 119 
 
 66 
 
 22 
 
 2,962,857 
 
 Five-Year 
 
 
 
 
 
 Period, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1900-1904 
 
 1,748 
 
 121 
 
 342 
 
 24 
 
 
 
 
 1905 
 
 369 
 
 123 
 
 67 
 
 22 
 
 3,003,680 
 
 1906 
 
 344 
 
 "3 
 
 86 
 
 28 
 
 3,044,980 
 
 1907 
 
 462 
 
 150 
 
 96 
 
 31 
 
 3, 086, 687 
 
 1908 
 
 470 
 
 150 
 
 107 
 
 34 
 
 3, 129, 128 
 
 1909 
 
 444 
 
 140 
 
 114 
 
 36 
 
 3,172,153 
 
 Grand Totals, 
 for Twenty- 
 Five Years, 
 
 1885-1909 7, 487 
 
 Five-Year 
 Period, 
 1 905- 1 909 2, 089 
 
 1900-1904 1, 748 
 1895-1899 1,534 
 1890-1894 1, 216 
 1885-1889 900 
 
 135 
 
 470 
 
 121 
 
 117 
 104 
 
 87 
 
 342 
 354 
 3" 
 247 
 
 30 
 
 24 
 
 27 
 27 
 
 24 
 
 115 
 
 1,724 
 
 27 
 
4 1 
 
 Tabus V. 1 — Suicides in Former New York City (Boroughs op Man- 
 hattan and the Bronx) for the Forty-Four Years, 1866-1909, and 
 Ratio per 1,000,000 Population por Each Year. 
 
 
 Suicides. 
 
 
 
 Suicides. 
 
 
 
 Ratio per 
 
 
 Ratio per 
 
 
 Year. 
 
 Number. 1,000,000. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Number, 
 
 , 1,000,000. 
 
 Population. 
 
 1866. . . 
 
 54 70 
 
 767,979 
 
 1889 
 
 244 
 
 156 
 
 1,566,801 
 
 1867. . . 
 
 82 101 
 
 808, 489 
 
 1890 
 
 239 
 
 148 
 
 1,612,559 
 
 1868.. . 
 
 98 115 
 
 851. 137 
 
 1891 
 
 300 
 
 181 
 
 1,659.654 
 
 1869. . . 
 
 102 114 
 
 896, 034 
 
 1892 
 
 241 
 
 141 
 
 I, 708, 124 
 
 1870. . . 
 
 101 107 
 
 943.300 
 
 1893 
 
 314 
 
 179 
 
 1,758,010 
 
 1871.. . 
 
 114 119 
 
 955.921 
 
 1894 
 
 331 
 
 183 
 
 I. 809, 353 
 
 1872.. . 
 
 • 144 149 
 
 968, 710 
 
 1895 
 
 376 
 
 201 
 
 1,873, 201 
 
 1873... 
 
 118 120 
 
 981,671 
 
 1896 
 
 384 
 
 201 
 
 1,906,139 
 
 1874. . 
 
 . 180 175 
 
 1,030,607, 
 
 1897 
 
 436 
 
 225 
 
 1.940.553 
 
 1875... 
 
 • 155 148 
 
 1.044,396 
 
 1898 
 
 463 
 
 234 
 
 1.976,572 
 
 1876. . . 
 
 • 150 139 
 
 1.075.532 
 
 1899 
 
 433 
 
 215 
 
 2,014,330 
 
 1877.. 
 
 . 148 134 
 
 1. 107, 597 
 
 1900 
 
 500 
 
 243 
 
 2,055,714 
 
 1878. . 
 
 142 124 
 
 1, 140,617 
 
 1901 
 
 470 
 
 222 
 
 2, Il8, 209 
 
 1879.. 
 
 117 IOO 
 
 1, 174,621 
 
 1902 
 
 477 
 
 219 
 
 2, 182,836 
 
 1880. . 
 
 152 126 
 
 1,209, 196 
 
 1903 
 
 521 
 
 232 
 
 2,249,680 
 
 1881.. 
 
 -166 133 
 
 1,244,511 
 
 1904 
 
 567 
 
 244 
 
 2,318.831 
 
 1882.. 
 
 ■ • 199 155 
 
 1, 280, 857 
 
 I9<55 
 
 422 
 
 177 
 
 2,390,382 
 
 1883.. 
 
 l6l 122 
 
 1,318,264 
 
 1906 
 
 442 
 
 178 
 
 2,484,432 
 
 1884. . 
 
 . . 229 169 
 
 1, 356, 764 
 
 1907 
 
 442 
 
 174 
 
 A54 1 , 084 
 
 1885.. 
 
 207 148 
 
 1,396,388 
 
 1908 
 
 644 
 
 246 
 
 2,620,447 
 
 1886. . 
 
 - • 223 155 
 
 1. 437. 170 
 
 1909 
 
 572 
 
 212 
 
 2,702,633 
 
 1887.. 
 
 • • 235 159 
 
 1.479.143 
 
 Total suicides and average ratio per 
 
 1888.. 
 
 247 162 
 
 1, 522, 341 
 
 1,000,000 population, 1 
 
 2,342—178. 
 
 1 Compiled from the records in the annual report of the Board of Health of the De- 
 partment of Health of the City of New York for the year ending December 31. 1908 (Vol. 
 II, pp. 1043 and 1128-9), and the Department of Health's advance summary of total 
 number of deaths by the principal causes in 1909. 
 
42 
 
 Table VI. 1 — An Analysis by Ten-Year Periods of the Total Number 
 op Suicides in the Former City of New York (Boroughs of Man- 
 hattan and the Bronx) Recorded in the Forty Years Ending with 
 1908, Classified by Sexes and Age-Groups, and the Ratio of the 
 Suicides in Each Age-Group to the Total Number of Suicides of 
 that Sex by Ten- Year Periods. 
 
 Suicides recorded in the decade, 1869-1878, inclusive. 
 
 Total for 
 both sexes 
 
 Male. 
 
 Female. 
 
 Ratio to 
 Number, total. 
 
 °3 
 10.7 
 50.2 
 33-4 
 
 5-4 
 
 77-5 
 
 0.2 
 10.6 
 463 
 34-8 
 
 8.1 
 
 80.6 
 
 2 
 
 54 
 
 153 
 
 77 
 
 19 
 
 3°5 
 
 1 
 
 83 
 166 
 
 105 
 20 
 
 375 
 
 0.7 
 17.7 
 50.2 
 25.2 
 
 6.2 
 
 22-5 
 
 0.3 
 
 22 . I 
 
 44-3 
 28.0 
 
 5-3 
 
 19.4 
 
 Number. 
 
 5 
 
 166 
 
 680 
 
 427 
 
 76 
 
 1.354 
 
 4 
 249 
 888 
 649 
 146 
 
 i,936 
 
 Ratio 
 
 to 
 total. 
 
 0.4 
 
 12-3 
 50.2 
 
 31-5 
 5-6 
 
 100. o 
 
 0.2 
 12 .9 
 45-9 
 33-5 
 
 7-5 
 
 100. o 
 
 Suicides recorded iu the decade, 1889-1898, inclusive. 
 
 Ratio 
 Age-Groups. Number, to total. 
 
 Under 15 years .... 3 
 
 15-24 years 112 
 
 25-44 years 527 
 
 45-64 years 350 
 
 65 years and over . . 57 
 
 All ages 1, 049 
 
 Suicides recorded in the decade, 1879-1888, inclusive. 
 Age-Groups. , 
 
 Under 15 years. . . 3 
 
 15-24 years 166 
 
 25-44 years 722 
 
 45-64 years 544 
 
 65 years and over. . 126 
 
 All ages 1, 561 
 
 Age-Groups. 
 
 Under 15 years. ... 4 
 
 15-24 years 258 
 
 25-44 years 1, 229 
 
 45-64 years 915 
 
 65 years and over. . 189 
 
 AU ages 2,595 
 
 Age-Groups. 
 
 Under 15 years. ... 2 
 
 15-24 years 392 
 
 25-44 years 1,783 
 
 45-64 years 1, 246 
 
 65 years and over . . 269 
 
 All ages 3, 692 
 
 1 Compiled from the annual report of the Board of Health of the Department of Health 
 of the City of New York for the year ending December 31. 1908 (Vol. II, pp. 1 128-9). 
 
 9 
 47 
 35 
 
 7 
 
 1 
 
 188 
 
 382 
 
 129 
 
 33 
 
 o. 1 
 25-7 
 5 2 -i 
 17.6 
 
 4-5 
 
 5 
 
 446 
 
 1,611 
 
 1,044 
 
 222 
 
 o. 1 
 
 13-4 
 48.4 
 
 3i-4 
 6.7 
 
 78.0 
 
 733 
 
 22 .0 
 
 3,328 
 
 Suicides recorded in the decade, 1899-1908, inclusive. 
 
 10.6 
 48 
 
 33 
 
 261 
 
 631 
 
 268 
 
 66 
 
 21.3 
 
 5i-5 
 21.8 
 
 5-4 
 
 2 
 
 653 
 
 2,414 
 
 i,5H 
 
 335 
 
 13-3 
 
 49.1 
 
 30.8 
 
 6.8 
 
 75-i 
 
 i, 226 
 
 24.9 
 
 4,918 
 
 100. o 
 
43 
 
 Table VI— (Continued). 
 Recapitulation. 
 
 Total suicides recorded in the forty years, 1869-1908. 
 
 O.z 
 
 4 
 
 0.2 
 
 16 
 
 O.I 
 
 10.4 
 
 586 
 
 22 .2 
 
 1. 514 
 
 i3-i 
 
 47-9 
 
 1.332 
 
 5°-5 
 
 5.593 
 
 48.5 
 
 34-3 
 
 579 
 
 21 .9 
 
 3.634 
 
 31-5 
 
 7.2 
 
 138 
 
 5-2 
 
 779 
 
 6.8 
 
 Age-Groups. 
 
 Under 15 years. ... 12 
 
 15-24 years 928 
 
 2 5-44 years 4, 261 
 
 45-64 years 3,055 
 
 65 years and over . . 641 
 
 All ages 8,897 77-i 2,639 22.9 11,536 100. o 
 
 Table VII. 1 — A Resume op the Suicide Experience op Some of the 
 Leading European Countries in the Latter Half of the Nineteenth 
 
 Century, Summarized by Decades in Ratios Per 1,000,000 Popula- 
 tion. 
 
 Countries. 1851-1860. 1861-1870. 1871-1880. 1881-1890. 1891-1900. 
 
 France 105 130 157 205 239 
 
 Denmark 279 269 256 255 234 
 
 Switzerland ... ... 226 219 
 
 German Empire ... ... 209 207 
 
 Austria ... 134 161 158 
 
 Sweden 64 80 87 107 128 
 
 Belgium 60 55 82 114 124 
 
 England... 66 70 77 89 
 
 Scotland 37 40 55 60 
 
 Italy ... 38 49 60 
 
 Norway 101 81 73 67 60 
 
 The Netherlands ... ... 55 56 
 
 Finland 42 37 31 39 48 
 
 Russia ... ... 30 32 
 
 Ireland ... 18 23 29 
 
 The German Empire, 
 by sections. 
 
 Saxony 246 280 326 351 313 
 
 Prussia 121 128 144 201 200 
 
 Baden no 132 17 6 I 93 200 
 
 Wurtemberg 100 131 172 160 165 
 
 Bavaria 84 85 108 137 134 
 
 1 Compiled from Gustav SundbSre's "Apercus Statistiques Internationaux" (Onzieme 
 Ainte, 1908, p. 143). 
 
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