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Show The Increase of Suicides. To a recent issue of The Independent, Mr. George P. Lrpton, "associate editor of the Tribune of Chicago, contributed sonic statistics of suicide which in auy ther country inevitably would excite ex-cite alarm. The present witnesses societics to put down Mormopism, to put down divorce, to increase Sunday observance, tp prevent national, state and municipal graft and to war on race suicide. If Mr. Upton's compilation be accurate, there is need of anationarmovement to put down suicide itself. For suicide is clearly on the increase. Nor is the increase gradual, as might be supposed.- It is advancing by leaps and bounds. During the last thirtceen years no less than 77,617 cases of suicide have beocn reported in the newspapers of the United States. In lS'Jl there, were 33.531 suicides. In 1896, '6,530. In 1901, five years later, there were 7,245. L3st year there 'were S.59.7. Considering that a number of cases never get into the Associated Associ-ated JVess dispatches, the American rate from this cause is something appalling. Certainly it is. a startling reflection upon our civilzation. In pagan Greece ant pagan Rome suicide was not regarded with horror. ; The heathen Buddhists do not hold it dishonorable today. Apparently the paganiza-tion paganiza-tion of America is having its usual effect at the present hour. Charging the increase to the pnganization. of the masses ; is justified, moreover, when we look abroad. Admittedly a tremendous de-Christiani-zation has taken' place in France during the last third of a century. Mr. Upton sites statistics showing that "in France the ratio is now 22.4, as against J5.7 per 100,000 twenty-five years ago; in Germany about the same." Catholic Austria shows only .3.0; Hungary. 2.7.- The Koelnische Volks-zeitung Volks-zeitung same months ago, in a careful analysis of German statistics, proved that in Catholic communities com-munities suicides were fewer than in non-Catholic. Analyzing government statistics last year, the Freeman's Journal of Dublin showed that suicide is rarer in Catholic Ireland than in any other country. Almost daily the fact is made plain to us that the population of Russia, as a whole, arc intensely religious, so we arc not surprised to find Mr, Upton. stating; "It is singular that in Russia, whf re crime. ha greatly increased, and where tha V.. conditions of life are supposed to be harder and more depressing than in other countries, there has beep no increase in the suicide rate." It ppears from the foregoing' that in . suicide the United States leads the- worhJU-Withr a popular tionpf 80.000,000 SO.OtfOO r of ''wMchia PQ? Christian she leads the world "in murder, in divorce, di-vorce, in rapes, in lynehings, in graft, in; social, scandal, ip-'vast and far-reaching embezzlements, public and private, and now in the number of her suicides. Tn seeking for causes, Mr. Upton says : "In the old days, also, the church treated suicide victims much as it did murderers, and not only condemned them to eternal punishment, but to earthly ignominy by refusing them Christian burial; bu-rial; but, with the weakening of ecclesiastical authority, and a growing doubt, of eternal punishment, punish-ment, and, sometimes, uncertainty as to the definite defi-nite nature of the hereafter, this restraint has largely disappeared." It has, and why need we. wonder? Look at the sensational preachers who today are virtually declaring that there shall be no resurrection from the dead, that there is no hereafter for the soul of man, that heaven is a myth and hell non-existent, that the Bible is not God-inspired, and other destroyers who teach that the .Teti Commandments are purely human in origin, and is not the cause of our decadence plain? Surely, the fools who arc sowing death cannot expect to reap life. When its leaders arc daily leading the multitude astray, how may we hope to escape the consequence? New World, Chicago. |