Show vioris OP SUICIDE th crime of adf kuader of the Horca fier it has been faund utterly propos sible bays a writer iu s magazine to convince men and women who are deai roua of ridding themselves of the burden of existence that they will commit even a venial error by accomplishing their own release it is simply useless to call it the crime of self murder or to talk of the sanctity of human life which god alone can give and he alone has a right tore call in the cie of prisoners who die for the attempt there is sometimes a diplomatic endeavor from mere policy to faive an absent to the moral reflections pressed upon them but when driven to speak their minds they invariably repeat that they seo no reason why they should bot divest themselves of an embar possession with which no one but themselves has any concern whatever this mode of dealing with alie subject is perhaps natural enough on the part ul persons who have never taken any serious view of their moral responsibilities but it is less eay to account for the ex light heartedness with which for the most art they are deuly to plunge into the unknown of the last mysterious change As we hae already said no thought of what may lie beyond disturbs their mind but it might have been that the chait ly associations of the grave and its slow decay would at kaat have moved them to some shrinking from the results of it is not 30 ibey take the latal step us easily and carelessly as they would lay themselves down to sleep in their bed it you had succeeded in your attempt to kill yourself the writer said to a young nao ncr who had been rescued almost lifeless from the river where she biad flung herself you would have been lying now cold and octiff under the coffin lid unable to fee the light of day or to apar the voice of a briend and with no time left for repentance or even a prayer for pardon are you not thankful to be restored to life and the opportunity of amend benl no eaid she lightly fur if they bad let me alone I 1 should havu been done with it all and had no more trouble or worry and that was just what I 1 waited I 1 wish they had left me at the bottom oi the river sometimes the immediate causes which lead to stem ly dis proportioned to the gravity c f the step one girl who as ready to fling maledictions male dictions at her rescuers had three several times done her befit to put an end to her existence on two ot these occasions she had so far as her will waa concerned practically succeeded once by poian and once by strangulation ahe was to all appearances appi arances dead the last time and would very soon have been BO in reality but for the care and toil bestowed on her by a kindly physician who was sent for on the discovery of her condition and mho spent a whole m unceasing to restore animation he succeeded at last and she did not thank him she was given ap to what she and her companions ot the same unhappy claar term with unconscious irony a gay life and ehe did find a alful hollow enjoy luent in the excitement of evenings spent in theaters and dancing booths and in the extravagant dressea and jewelry with which she adorned herself but there vama to her sudden moments when the whole phantasmagoria of her existence would seem to roll away from her and the reality of her position appear in its true colors and straightway without an instants hesitation she would take the best means in her power to divest herself of it altogether she cad the truism that extremes meet for the manner in which the subject is regarded by these the lowest outcasts of the people ia exactly similar to the view taken of it by high clasa leaders of society in modern prance where it is the fashion now to say on vit par beque ceque a boins de se theron ue neut pas faire autremont aut rement the hapless inmates of our prisons however consider the alternative of killing themselves vea preferable to an unwilling endurance of the primary evil while the and indifference with which suicide is resort ed to ig almost universal in the lower stratum of society the causes which lead to the impulse are of course very varied and often most pathetic A poor old woman who had nearly reached the three score years and ten waa sen fenced lately to a short term afim for attempting self destruction it had very nearly been successful and in fact wai so in the end as the shock to her system from immersion in ice cold water proved fatal and a ic only libed one week after her release from jail sho related her simple history with the utmost she had lived must happily and respectably ably with her from the time of her early marriage in youth he had a pasion aa a retired soldier which eup porte 1 them in comparative coi niort when he waa too old to work their home for yeam had been the little cottage in which he died at the commencement oan unusually bevera winter he lad bhea aa angel the poor woman said so good ami steady and so kind to ner aej when he was gono she clung with passionate attachment to the little house in which she bad spent BO many happy years with hun but she could bol pay the rent his pension had of course expired with him and she wax iu fact without the of living at all she began by selling her little one after another to obtain food and in thia way she managed to live for a few beeks when everything was gone except the scanty of one room the landlord appealed and clai it for his unpaid rent it was all carted away including the cheat containing her clothing then he turned her aiuto the street and lock ed the door there was adt one refuge open to her on earth the workhouse but that last abode of wretchedness deemi to hold A place in the minds of the poor undeservedly edly wo think in horror to one of the circles of dantes inferno the idea of going to it does not stern to have d to the forlorn widow she looked buck for a moment at the closed do her little carllile carl lily paradise and then took her way adiv erica ugh a public park to the amr there without apparently the slightest shrinking she flung heiselt herselt into the water under a cold wintry sky efto men happened to be going past in a bot they rescued her just as she was sinking and after conscious nesja had baui restored ren she was taken to the prison riho pasted ahe time of her sojourn there in a strange dreamy bbate talking only of her husband and her hope perhaps again if she could only succeed in gating ge ting oui of this weary world this hope had only been to her mind by the religious consolations to her in the prison but it proved completely impossible to persuade her that she had aut been perfectly justified in trying to die she would have been quite willing to repeat the experiment if death had not mercifully come to her uncalled and thus at last her desire was granted |