GOLDEN GATE CITY LEADS.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 8, Issue 28, 5 April 1907, Page 6

GOLDEN GATE CITY LEADS.

Shown the Lar«o#t F«- * JTWtHffiLbOT of people wliO Voluntarily shuffled off this mortal coil in 'American and other cities during last* year has been investigated by some delv«r in atotistics and the following flgureß indicate theresults: San Francisco leads with the largest ratio, 39.1 per 100,000 of population. Next comes another Pacific coast city, Los Angeles, with a ratio of 29.8. The reader has naturally been looking for Chicago, and that city does, in fact, come next with a ratio of 24.0, followed by tho neighboring city of Milwaukee, whose ratio is 22.2. New Orleans was the scene of the eelf-dostruction of 21.8 persona per 100,000 of population, and Cincinnati followed close with 21.8. New Haven is next with 20.0, and then cornea the borough of Manhattan with 20.0, though greater New York as a whole is well down the list with a ratio of only 13.0. This is loss than Rochester, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, Omaha and Louisville, besides nil of thos« specifically enumerated above. As to the foreign cities, Paris leads the list with a ratio of 'l2, followed by Berlin 36, Vienna 28 and London 23. There were more suicides in Saxony than in any other country, 31.1 per 1(50,000, In Denmark the ratio was 2, r >.B, iu Austria 21.2, in France 15.7, in the German empire 14.3, and Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Great Britain, Italy, the United States and Spain followed in the order given. The table referring to" American cities is somewhat difficult to explain. Why the city of the golden gate, and "California, wilh its glorious climate, its sunshine, its fruit and its' flowers, should show the greatest number of suicides seems a mystery, unless the presence of a large Chinese population explains it. The high suicide rate, of Chicago is, perhaps, accounted for by the rush and struggle of that great city and the large foreign element it contains—a foreign element, moreover, which comes mainly from those countries where suicide is most frequent. The same is perhaps true of Milwaukee and of Cincinnati. The high rate at New Orleans may possibly be attributed to its relation to France and the ideas and traditions brought here from Paris, the suicide capital of the world. But New York city casts a cloud over some of these explanations. Here trfp the large foreign populations, the stress and strain of living and working, the poverty, the excitement. Yet Philadelphia, the sleeping city of the humorous paragraphed, has a higher ratio of suicides than greater New York. And how is it to be explained that. New Haven leads all the other New England cities in the number of suicides? St. Paid and Minneapolis lie side by side, but in Minneapolis the ratio is 11.4 and in St, Paul it ip. but 6.5. It seems that the conclusions must be that there is no method insuicide madness and that the effort, to reduce it to rule is doomed to failure. ,