SUICIDE AND CRIME COMPARED; AND ATTEMPTED SUICIDE.
It is instructive to compare the statistics of crime in general with
those of suicide; such data as are found in “Recherches sur le penchant
au Crime,” by A. Quetelet, illustrate this matter; he gives the figure
of a curve showing the amount of crime at different ages of life. This
curve rises from almost zero at ten years of age to nearly its maximum
at 20, quite its highest point at 23, and then falls evenly to half its
height at 45; thence evenly to 70, when it is at a similar position to
15 years of age, and thence evenly to zero at the age of 100 years.
These proportions are found to exist at the present time in our own
country. Among women the maximum falls a little later in life than
among men, viz., at 30 years of age. Of crime in general, one woman is
convicted to four men.
The seasons disclose a peculiar proportion; in summer there are most
crimes against the person, fewest against property; in winter, fewest
crimes against the person, most against property.
Officials and professional men are more prone to commit crimes against
the person than against property; labourers and mechanics commit more
crimes against property than against the person. Celibacy contributes
60 out of 100 criminals. It seems tolerably certain that one-half
of insane persons, two-thirds of the poor, and three-fourths of all
criminals are persons who have drunk to excess.
I add in this place, figures shewing the present decrease of crime
in England and Scotland, to which reference was made in the preface.
This diminution may be, in some part, due to an increase of the police
force, and to the greater efficiency of these officers. If these be the
real causes of the improvement, and not increased morality, the reason
why the suicide rate is not decreasing becomes explained, because, as
I point out elsewhere, the police are almost powerless to control the
perpetration of suicide.
The number of persons committed for criminal trial in 1882 was
15,260; this shews a diminution of 381 upon the average of five years
precedent. In Scotland, 2,692 persons were committed for trial against
2,859, the average for the five years immediately preceding. The total
number of “persons of bad character known to the police” in England is
also diminished in 1882, being 38,966, against 39,161 in the previous
year, and compared to 46,877 in the year 1872.
Sir John Lubbock has lately called attention to the diminished amount
of English crime at the present time, and attributes it to the spread
of education. Mr. Justice Smith has also spoken on the same point,
but hesitates to assign education as the cause of the improvement; he
mentions another remarkable point, that the highest rates of criminal
violence are associated with the population earning the highest wages,
chiefly through the greater amount of alcoholic liquors so consumed.
Suicide certainly has points of difference to other crimes of violence;
the wicked ones of earth are not those who specially practice it.
Education checks crime, although under the influence of increased
mental tension self-sacrifice is more rife; alcohol increases crime
and suicide also; this I believe to be due to the fact that habitual
alcoholic excess lessens the controlling power of the conscience,
and renders the mind less able to withstand the tension induced by
development.
The prevalence of suicide is every day attributed to the progress of
immorality; I associate it as much with the development of thought.
Savages, implacable in their hate, ferocious in their vengeance, and
atrocious in their pleasures, do not commit it, although they kill
their old people, and do not hesitate to drink from the skulls of their
enemies. It was not common among any of the great nations of old until
they became cultivated intellectually. Compare Regnault on Mental
Alienations.
ATTEMPTED SUICIDE.
The relative proportion between suicides and suicidal attempts has been
the subject of much difference of opinion.
It is a common idea that many attempts are made with a view to coerce
or influence relations and friends, attempts which, in fact, are not
intended to be successful, although they sometimes succeed.
In general, if a second attempt be made, after a fruitless effort, and
especially after recovery from injury, the patient is insane. Attempts
at suicide by cutting very frequently fail, as do attempts by the use
of fire-arms; but on the other hand, death is much more certain if
drowning or hanging has been the means used.
In cases of poisoning, also, the victims are often found half dead,
and skilful treatment restores a great number. In a recent case a man
threw himself between the rails in front of an advancing train, and
yet escaped without any injury; but such attempts are almost certain
destruction.
Ogston (Ed. Med. Journal, Feb. 1885) narrates a very interesting and
instructive case of suicide: the deceased had evidently made repeated
attempts to kill himself with a razor; six incisions were visible on
the chest and five on the neck, but the unfortunate man finding himself
not dying fast enough, had finally cast himself into the sea, and was
drowned.
In view of the great uncertainty existing as to the relation between
attempted and completed self-destruction, I made a special appeal to
the medical profession in this country, through the medical journals,
for information, but received only few replies. As a rule, hospital
medical officers consider that attempts far outnumber successes,
whilst general practitioners incline to the opinion that failures
are less frequent. As a summary of all the cases reported to me, the
numbers were in the relative proportion of 21 failures to 12 completed
instances. I have already said how difficult it is to form a correct
estimate of the number of suicides (see page 58); the sources of error
are still more numerous when we attempt to estimate the number of
unsuccessful attempts. The police are entirely at a loss to supply any
valuable information as to the proportion of attempts. I consider that
they are not concerned in a third of such instances; they only hear of
those cases that occur in the public streets, or in lodging houses,
or in the parks; or of those attempts at drowning, which are at times
frequent, by jumping from the bridges, especially in London.
“Of one hundred persons,” says Esquirol, “who attempt suicide only
forty succeed.” Brierre de Boismont says, “for one suicide there are
two attempts.” Legoyt has ascertained that in Dublin, 1874-76, for
three years the proportions (known to the police) were 41 successes
and 123 attempts. He also calculates that in the countries of Europe,
excluding Turkey, there are annually 28,000 persons who attempt to
kill themselves, and 22,000 succeed. The Statistical Society published
in Vol. I. of their Journal the following figures; in one year, 75
completed to 47 attempts; in another, 117 completed to 58 attempted;
these were London cases, and the numbers were, I believe, procured from
the police registers. During a period of nine years, 4,595 suicides
were registered in Paris, and 1,864 suicidal failures. In Baden, during
two years, 417 suicides were discovered, whilst the official records
show only 22 cases of attempted suicide.
The attempt to commit suicide is much less liable to interruption
than attempted murder. There is no resistance from the opponent to
be allowed for, and it is easy to evade the officers of the law by
attempting the act when alone. As a matter of fact, it is a rare event
for anyone to commit suicide when in company with others. The majority
of suicides are not discovered until after death.
Comte considers it a folly of lawmakers to think that enactments can
check the act.
Heber, “Journey through India,” calls attention to the very small
amount of success, during many years, which English officials achieved
in preventing suicidal drowning at Benares and elsewhere in British
India, by means of legal enactments.
THE LAW OF SUICIDAL ATTEMPTS.
Suicide, as before described, is a felony; the attempt to commit a
felony is in the eye of the English law a misdemeanour; consult R.
_v._ Higgins, 2 East., 8; and R. _v._ Martin, 9 C. and P. 213-215. An
attempt at Felo-de-se is a misdemeanour over which the quarter sessions
have jurisdiction; but it is not an attempt to commit murder within the
meaning of the Act 24 & 25 Vict, c. 100, _see_ R. _v._ Burgess, 1. L.
and C. 258, 32 L. J., M. C. 56.
When the police hear of an attempt at suicide, the culprit is taken in
charge by them; if seriously injured the patient is watched in hospital
by a police officer. It is customary to charge the offender before the
magistrates as soon as practicable; in such a case it is more usual
to bind over the prisoner to “keep the peace,” than it is to send the
case for trial; if there be any evidence of insanity, the prisoner is
examined by the police surgeon and another medical man; and if found to
be insane is certified as such, and confined in an asylum.
I cannot refrain from saying that both law and custom with respect to
Suicide are in a very unsatisfactory and anomalous state. On the one
hand, self-murder is ranked by the law as a _felony_, one of the worst
of crimes;─on the other hand, hardly one suicide a year is called a
_felon_. Suicide is not in law any proof of the existence of insanity,
yet no sooner is the suicide quite dead, than almost every one cries
out that he was insane. Again, an attempt at suicide is a misdemeanour
punishable by imprisonment, yet a person caught in the act and taken
before the magistrates is generally dismissed from custody, not because
of insanity, certainly not, because if that were the plea, he would be
sent to an asylum, and not set free; but let the culprit presently die
from a cause dependent on the suicidal injury, and the verdict will
be that he was insane. Surely such incongruities cannot be allowed to
exist much longer.