and more to recognise that facts concerning population, even in the most trifling details, are the expression of laws that scientific investigation may determine; that the variations caused by climates and races are also appreciable, but that these variations are maintained in much straiter limits than might be supposed from the very imperfect documents which statists have still to work upon; that, lastly, when great differences are found to exist between the results afforded by two countries upon one and the same question, there is less chance of deception, if the differences are attributed to an inequality in the exactness of the methods of inquiry made use of by the two countries, than in referring them to variations in facts, which might lead us to suppose that the documents were of the same value on both sides.

"I believe, then, that I may, from the whole of the data which I have given (concerning violent deaths), draw the following general conclusion:-In the majority of European States, except in case of war or revolution, 3 to 5 per cent. of the deaths will have for primary cause an exterior accident; and in every 10 violent deaths, from 2 to 4 will be occasioned by suicide, or the proportion of suicides in every 1000 deaths will be from 6 to 15. It is solely within these limits that it is necessary to seek the variations which result from races, climates, and physical and moral dispositions of populations."-(Op. cit. pp. 101-2.)

It may be questioned whether this conclusion is not somewhat premature, considering the scanty amount of trustworthy data at Dr. M. d'Espine's command.

The proportion of suicides which may be contained in the list of "found dead," or which may be entered in the table of violent deaths without being distinguished, or may escape the inquest of a coroner's jury in this country, we have no means of knowing, but we can scarcely conceive that it reaches the extent supposed by M. d'Espine. If, however, we are to regard the tables contained in the Registrar-General's last report as the commencement of a systematic publication of the mortality from suicide, we feel assured that in Dr. Farr's hands the statistics will, in due time, receive the highest degree of elaboration of which they are capable, and that the measure of their imperfections will be fully set forth, so that, at least, any serious errors of deduction may be avoided. 2. In England, the number of suicides occurring at different ages increases from the decennial period, 10-15, to a maximum in 45-55, after which the number declines until 85-95, no instance being recorded subsequent to the 95th year. In the canton of Geneva the number increases to a maximum in the period 20-30 (the mortality from suicide in that period being eight times greater than in the previous one). After the maximum a gradual decrease takes place until 80-90, in which period only one instance

of suicide is recorded for a space of 13 years. In Paris, according to Brierre de Boismont (Du Suicide et de la Folie Suicide: 1856. pp. 75-76), the maximum occurs in the period 20-30, after which there is a gradual decrease until the final period indicated, 90-91. In the departments of France the maximum is not attained until 40-50, this being, in fact, about the same period that it occurs in England, if allowance be made for certain variations in the arrangement of the decennial periods in the statistics of the two countries; and if the French data be compared with the proportion of population at different ages, it is found that the number of suicides among the aged is relatively higher than among persons who have not passed mid-life. This coincides also with the results of the English returns.

The great difference which exists between the period of life at which the largest number of suicides occurs in the canton of Geneva and in England is remarkable. While in the canton the maximum is attained at the 30th year, in England it is not reached until the 55th year. In the one country it occurs in early life; in the other, when life has begun to decline: on the one hand, when the struggle of life has been more than half fought; on the other, when it has barely commenced. How significant a comment upon the difference of social or moral character in the two countries! May it not be that with this early developed tendency to suicide, telling probably either of an imperfect development of the higher moral faculties in early life, or of the too prevalent existence of notions which foster the growth of self-destruction, there is a true excess of suicides in Geneva as compared with this country; and that the high relative figure in Dr. M. d'Espine's returns, is indicative of a truth which an improvement in the statistics of other countries may only partially modify.

In Paris, the maximum number of suicides is attained at the 30th year as in the canton of Geneva. The maximum of suicides in Paris coincides with the maximum of female but not of male suicides; the greatest number of the latter taking place in the period 30-40. The difference, however, between the periods 20-30 and 30-40 numbers only 5 among males; while among females it amounts to 89. Upon the excess of suicides in Paris, from 20 to 30 years of age, Boismont remarks: "If this result be always the same, it is necessary to conclude that young persons in the capital are more addicted to kill themselves; this disposition would then be due to ennui (tædium vitæ, spleen), so common at this age."-(Op. cit. p. 76.) Suicide is not a necessary consequence of ennui, and we must seek for the cause which determines the proclivity of the ennuyé in Paris to selfdestruction, (supposing that ennui, in its gravest acceptation,

exists to the extent believed by M. Boismont). Is not this to be found in the conventional notions so prevalent among the youth of that city, of the fitness and legitimacy of suicide in the more serious, nay, indeed, in almost all the hitches of life? A feather will show the direction of the wind, and a waif of popular literature may indicate the tendency of thought among Parisian adolescents. In a little brochure, entitled, "Paris-Medicin," which has casually come under our notice while writing this article, and which forms one of a series headed "Les Petits Paris," (a series devoted to the oddities and characteristics of a Paris life), is represented the struggles of a young physician, and most shrewdly are the eccentricities and dernier ressorts of a medical life portrayed. The hero is depicted as seeking to form a practice in Paris. He has a scanty fortune, and placing his name upon the door of his apartments, with the addition, "consultations de midi à quatre heures," he awaits an influx of patients. Bright visions flit before his imagination-visions of what? Of the dress affected by the noted practitioners; of the Café de Paris; of hosts of parasitic admirers; of the Opera, danseuses, journalism, a carriage and pair, a grand house-in which he gives superb dinners-and, finally, of a town career so bright that an enterprising editor offers him 100,000 francs for his autobiography! But the awakening tells a different tale: no patients call upon him; his funds gradually diminish; difficulty follows difficulty; and, at length, having exhausted his means, he is compelled to vacate his rooms, and wander in the streets. Then "à bout de patience et de résignation des idées de suicide me virent." Aided by a friend, however, who happily comes across him before he has time to carry his suicidal notions into effect, he tries to obtain a living by practising various forms of quackery, or as the book significantly phrases it, specialities, but to no purpose. "Il fallait vivre cependant, et j'étais à bout de ressources. Les idées de suicide s'offraient de nouveau à mon esprit In the very nick of time, the medical secretaryship to a clairvoyant is offered to him, and accepted. This is followed in succession by practice at five sous a visit, gratuitous consultations (playing into the hand of another physician), and finally, book-making. After a bitter disappointment in his literary efforts, he becomes ill, and is sent to a hospital. Recovering, he is again cast upon his own exertions for a livelihood; but although he is impoverished, and sees no prospect of success before him, he indignantly refuses a fee offered to him by a professional robber, whose brother he had aided, and his conscience pricks him that he had not denounced the malefactor to justice "J'ai peut-être commis un acte de coupable faiblesse." Then seeing that even homoeopathy held out

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no hope to him, and that the globule had lost nearly all its influence, again comes the refrain, "Il ne me restait donc plus que le suicide. Je délibérais donc sur le genre de mort que j'allais choisir." At this crisis, the news reached him that his aunt ("ingrat! et je n'y songeais plus!" had died and left him fifty thousand francs, and thenceforward life flowed smoothly.

Whether the suicidal refrain in the sketch, of which the foregoing is a description, be regarded as a satire upon a tendency of thought prevalent among a class of young men, or as the expression of an ordinary sentiment on the part of the author, it tells a tale equally significant.

3. The number of suicides is invariably greater among males than females. Boismont states that male suicides are two-thirds more numerous than female in Paris, and he gives statistics showing that the same proportion exists throughout France. This is, also, about the relative proportion in England. The data used by Dr. M. d'Espine give, as the proportion of males, in every hundred suicides, in each of the following countries, the accompanying figures:-Prussia, 82; Bavaria, 75; England, 68; France 76; and Sardinia, 80.

4. The subjoined table presents at one view the comparative prevalence of the different methods of suicide in England and several continental countries :

:

The foregoing figures must not be

taken as absolute, as the position of the principal methods of suicide may vary in relation to each other in different periods. Thus from 1825 to 1834, drowning was the commonest mode of suicide in the canton of Geneva, but in the thirteen years 1838-47, 1853-55, gunshot wounds stood first in order of frequency.

The three chief methods of suicide-hanging, drowning, and

* Traité de Géographie et de Statistique Médicales. Par J. Ch. M. Boudin, 1857, t. ii. p. 82.

wounds by various instruments-are those over which the least control can be exercised, and which can be most readily had recourse to. Facility of access to deleterious agencies has, however, a decided influence upon the method of suicide employed, as is shown by the high position which poisoning holds in the English returns as compared with those of France and Geneva. It has often been urged upon the attention of government and the public that the almost unrestricted sale of poisons in this country facilitates the perpetration of suicide, and every addition to our statistics strengthens this opinion. The bill at present before parliament for regulating the sale of poisons will, doubtless, have some effect in diminishing the number of suicides by poison; but the provisions of the bill only interpose slight checks to the sale of the poison most commonly used by suicides. Suicides by opium and its preparations form, however, but a small item in the mischief done by the ignorant use of that drug, and it may be doubted whether it be sound policy to exempt the most familiarly known, most frequently used, and the most mischievous of all the poisonous drugs, from the more stringent restrictions of the bill.

It has been objected to the argument derived from suicides against the free sale of poisons that, if they were not attainable, the persons who now have recourse to poison for self-destruction would adopt some other method of suicide, and hence that no advantage would be gained by restriction. This objection is entirely speculative; but it is a matter of experience that the method of destruction exercises an important influence in determining the act of suicide, and that many who would have recourse to poison, shrink from more violent means of death. It is not to be forgotten, that the suicides by poison only represent a portion of the cases in which poison was used with a suicidal intention.

ART. IV. JUDICIAL PSYCHOLOGY IN FRANCE.

WE have often had occasion to admire the orderly form in which the scientific evidence in cases of disputed insanity is generally presented in France as contrasted with the somewhat disjointed fashion in which it is frequently, if not generally, elicited by a vivá voce examination in our courts. All that we could wish to say on this subject is well illustrated by the report of a very interesting case published in a recent number of the Annales MédicoPsychologiques. The case in question is not only important in itself, but from the ample remarks which precede it, an Englishman gets without difficulty many interesting details, showing the course of practice in French courts, and the estimation in which