SUICIDES OF CHILDREN.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2319, 21 May 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

SUICIDES OF CHILDREN.

Wk liave no means of knowing whether suicides among children are proportionally more numerous within the last few years than they were previously. Attention has been specially directed' to these lamentable occurrences recently, ana this may account for the fact that an increased number of cases are from time tu» timo under notice. There is something especially distressing in the fact that consciousness may be, and often is, so painfully influenced by circumstances in the early stages of life that death is sought as a relief from misery. We do not think that a man or woman must needs be insane to seek death as an escape from trouble. It seems to us that well within the limits of sanity a perverse, or morally cowardly, or very much worried consciousness may reason out the prp[W)si,tii'm that life is .not worth livine, and conclude to die. Precisely the same processes .. which go on in the , mind of an adult may be in operation in the mind of a child,, Tli ei,e is, in short, no reason why the young should not commit suicide as well as the old—which in a very practical way may be said to bo an essential life—is crushed out of existance. The mind in which hope dies may court death, and yet be in no sense morbid. It is difficult, but it is possible, to slay hope in the life of a child, and when this is accomplished it is not unreasonable to suppose that despair may end in selfslaughter. The intense haste of life and enterprise is doubtless one of the causes of suicide, and there can be no question that our system of forced education, and the premature imposition of hideous brain tasks on the young press heavily oh the consciousness. We venture to think this subject of suicides among children is one which ought to be taken into very serious consideration by those who are _ responsible for the of laws which may ultimately render the population more erudite, but which will not, unless greatly modified, make them happier, or, in a social sense, more prosperous than heretofore.—Lancet.