THE "LET'S DIE" SOCIETY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 172, 7 August 1937, Page 11

THE "LET'S DIE" SOCIETY

Japan ha's long been known aa a , conntry where suicide is prevalent. The widespread belief in the nearness of'the dead to the -living, which finds expression in votive offering-s of food and_ drink to the' slirines' of ' ancestors' helps to 'rob deatli of its terror. Moreover, Japanese classical plays ; • an-d legends exalt cases of hara-kari, ; > the form "of suicide by disemBowelling prescribe'd for the samurai class, when - these . are committed for some exalted ' motive, such- as devotion to a feudal 1 , superior. The Tokio ,polico registcred 2 681 ; actual and attempted suieidcs during • 1936, 700 falling tinto tho class of at- : temptcd but uneompleted. Hlness was ] t.ho main cause, accounting for 915 cases, and poison was the most frequent method of taking life. ; Among the actual and attempted 1

suicides were 1,691 men and 990 women; the largest number' of cases fall betweea the' ages of twenty-one and' twenty-five. : There was an increase of 266,. by comparison with 1935. A* spectaeular case of d'emonstrative attempted suicide occurred in Tokio recently, when several members of the Nichiren Buddhist sect, who belonged to a self-styled "Let's Die" society, went through the motions of taking. their-' lives in front of eeveral publie buildings ^n Tokio. Nbhe of the attempts* was successful and one of tho Tokio .newspapers drily, suggested- that the.professed eandidates Oor self-martyrdom were merely publicity seekers, adding that -they could msily have killed themselves in their >wn homes.' ' Tlieir alleged motive was x vague discontent with the state of ihe world and religion. "