PARISIAN SUICIDES.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2107, 5 October 1875, Page 3

PARISIAN SUICIDES.

No other city in the world can show such remarkable statistics relating to suicide as the French metropolis. This desperate resort seems to be epidemic at all seasons of the year. The means employed are various, the water of the Seine and the fumes of charcoal being the most common ; but there is one mode which is almost peculiar to the Parisians alone. Official statistics show that one hundred and twenty individuals have killed themselves from the summit of the Column of Vendome, which rears itself nearly a hundred and fifty feet in the air. in the centre of the Place Vendome. Our readers will remember that during the reign of the Commune in Paris, this grand monument, erected by the first Napoleon in 1805, was pulled down, but it has since been restored to its former height and completeness, except the statue of Napoleon, which has not been replaced upon the suimmit for obvious political reasons. From the Column of July situated in the Place de la Bastille, rearing its lofty, proportions over one hundred and fifty feet heavenward, forty-nine individuals have leaped to destruction. "What a strange infatuation must have possessed these desperate people as they stood on the lofty pinnacle beside the gilt figure of the Genius of Libertj' for a moment before they hurled themselves into space. From the summit of the Arc de-Triumphe, at the upper end of the Champs Elysees, the official record also {•hows thiry one .individuals have sought instant death. This triumphal arch is situated upon the highest grounds in Paris, and is the finest and largest structure of the Hnd in the world. But of all the lofty heights from which the suicides of the French capital have leaped to certain destruction, the famous tower of Notre Danie takes precedence. Here an official record has been kept since the commencement of the last century, and it exhibits the fact that seven hundred and sixty-seven desperate human beings have thrown away their lives by leaping from the towers to the pavement belovr. —N.B. Daily Mail.