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Show j ALAS FOR SUICIDAL FRANCE. j The official statistics on suicide in France for 390S, are adly significant of the demoralization that ) i has been produced in that countrv bv the anti- i ; Christian policy of the government, followed since ; .j IST'j. Vice and crime of every sort have enormous- . ! ly increased in the past thirty years. Religion and the teaching of morality have been banished from ! the schools, which have become hot beds of atheism j and its attendant consequences. What kind of sol- j diers will these unhappy boys make in the inevit- j able war which already menaces France, weakened cs they must be in physique, in religious feeling, patriotic sentiment and manly incentive; What will he the future of a country brought up on Zola and his hideous gang of imitators; There are sinister sin-ister and ominous reports in the German press of i the intended partition of France among its neighbors neigh-bors after the next conquest, just as rumors of the intentions of Catharine and Frederick were spread abroad some years before the destruction of Po- ! land. Many vices eat into the vitals of a nation; but an abnormal increase in the number of suicides is one of the most characteristic signs of the decay of a civilization that has been putrified by impiety and immorality. The suicides in France, and especially in Paris, arc significant of the ravages of despair in a country where religion is exposed to incessant-assaults incessant-assaults at the hands of blasphemy and free thought. The number of suicides in 3908. according to i statistics supplied by the New York Sun. in the eighty-seven departments of France, was tf.OT:, among which the department of the Seine (Paris) reckoned 1.920, or nearly a fifth, while normally, in proportion to population, it ought to reckon only a fifteenth. The month furnishing the greatest number num-ber of suicides was July, during which the total was S7i while the mean for the other months was 580 to 61S. The proportion of self-murders in the number ! of women was much smaller than in that of men. Thus, among these 8,573 French citizens who destroyed de-stroyed themselves, 6.4S0 were men and 2,093 women. wom-en. The conclusion to be drawn from this gruesome fact is evidently that women endure the miseries of life better than men. because the latter are. in a much larger proportion, the victims of vice, intemperance intem-perance and impurity, and indeed of impiefy in general. In France, at any rate, this would seem to be the case. It would also appear from these statistics that men are more inclined to suicide between the ages of 50 and CO than at any other period. The number of those who killed themselves between these limits was 2,960. while between the ages of 30 and 40 there were 1.203. and from 40 to 50 there were 3.600. I Suicides seldom occur in extreme old age; only 1S7 are given of persons over 80. i The compilers of these figures are careful to give the most frequent causes of self-destruction, and while poverty, loss of employment, etc.. are 'responsible 're-sponsible for a considerable proportion, it is a significant sig-nificant fact that debauchery, crime and cowardice in the presence of physical suffering lead to by far the largest number of self-slayers. In the cases of madness which ended in suicide, it would be interesting to traco the causes of insanity. in-sanity. There can scarcely be any doubt, but that, 'in too many instances, it was the result of debauchery debauch-ery and drunkenness, . . These statistics offer serious points of meditation medita-tion to nations and to individuals. Nothing could exhibit better the absolute necessity of religious faith, and of the salutary restraints it puts upon the passions, the influence for good it exercises on the will, and of the consolations it brings to the wretched. . To take from men their faith in another life," and their sense of moral responsibility to God, is to force them, in their despair, to welcome suicide as their only refuge. The sorrows of thi$ life exceed, lor the larger number of us. its pleasures and joys. When religion re-ligion does not come to the aid of man. when it does not sustain him. raise him up. inspire him with hope, give him patience and resignation, is it any wonder that his misfortunes and disappointments disappoint-ments determine him to have done with life, and 1o care as little for his own existence as for that of others ' The logical consequence of unbelief is 'suicide, and the frightful increase in the number of. this class of criminals revealed by French government statistics is the best evidence of the spread of infidelity in-fidelity in that un fortunate country. |