On Suicide, In Its Social Relations
230 Art. III.? :Author: James George Davey, M.D., Bristol.
At a public meeting held at the Weston-super-Mare centre in respect to the ” Cambridge Examinations,” and reported in the Bristol papers so recently as June 12th, 1878, Professor Morley has the credit given him of having said that the ” pro- cess of bringing about civilisation was slow, but at the same time it was sure. In the present day he did not believe they were more than half civilised; and centuries hence the state of civilisation of the present day would be looked back upon with feelings of horror.” I apprehend that this position of Professor Morley can hardly be denied. If each of us thought out the present chaotic state of society indicated by the mutual mis- trusts, the jealousies, and the greed seen pretty nearly every- where ; if we could, as individuals, realise the sectarian rivalry, the severe party-spirit, the dread conquests of fashion, the guilty ambitions, and general want of a thoroughly sound charity among mankind, then must Professor Morley’s dictum be accepted to the full. Now, the speech from which the words quoted form a part expresses a hope that there is not wanting the time or opportunity when efforts will be made to lessen the ” chaos ” referred to, whilst the means will be sought and found to give to all “that full culture of the mind” which, as Pro- fessor Morley affirmed, made ” man more manly ” and ” woman more womanly.” At this time there is surely a spirit of liberality afloat, an anxiety to act with justice to all, to look with s}nnpathy on the acts of our fellow-men, and to estimate fairly and charitably the failings and even the errors of indi- viduals; and even more than this, to diminish the rigour of our laws in so far as they can affect those really criminal. This being the case, I ask each one and all interested in the cause of progress to reflect on the position of the suicide at this very hour. In the first place, he is held to be a criminal, and not only is he awarded punishment such as it is held to be, but his survivors, his nearest and best of kin, those whom he loved living, are made partakers of his punishment, though he be dead. The State, the Church, the Reformed State Church, as by law established, and society, each and all of these corporate existences refuse the suicide all due con- sideration. The suicide is the bete noir of even Mr. Glad- stone’s scheme of life assurance, of ecclesiastical law, and of public bodies calling themselves life assurance companies.
The award of the would-be suicide is the gaol, that of the felo- de-se is ignominy and disgrace of no common character, for he who of all others, failing to meet the due responsibilities of life, the most to be pitied, is to this time denied the ” rites of public burial.” Well, then, the object of this paper is to plead in the interest of the suicide, to ask for his cause the most thoughtful consideration. The ground I take may have been already anticipated?it is simply this: the suicidal act is but one of the many indications of insanity, a sure and terrible sign or symptom of madness. If we would form a correct estimate of any given case of ” suicide,” it is desirable not to isolate the mere act of self-destruction, successful ok otherwise, from either the personal history of the patient or the circum- stances immediately surrounding him at the time of the attempt on his life. The former should be regarded as the remote, and the latter as the immediate cause of the painful climax realised, i.e. the suicidal act. Now, such a correct estimate is rarely even so much as sought for, and hence it is that the newspaper reports are of so little value, regarded as medical records of individual cases. Moreover, it is by no means an easy matter to get possession of the personalities, past or present, of suicides. Of such not unfrequently little can be known, even if the greatest pains be taken by one most interested in the matter. It should be remembered by those anxious for a full and com- plete acquaintance with the merits of the question herein raised, that now and then persons unquestionably insane, ordinarily insane, have the power to conceal the indications of their deep affliction ; and that this same power they employ, and success- fully, too, not so much for the purpose of duping those about them, relatives or friends, as from the desire to keep a too painful and personal affair secret and to themselves. Such a state of obscure, or rather concealed, brain disorder might go on for many weeks, or even months, and terminate either in the restoration of the afflicted party, or in a sudden and alarming aggravation of all the symptoms of the malady, when of course the truth is made manifest. And there is little to astonish us in this much. It is not easy to read the mind’s secret working at any time, be that mind on this or on that side of the not very straight line which divides sanity from insanity; to know the character of A or B, among whom chance may throw us, is not always over easy. To get at A or B’s private feelings, whether of joy or sorrow, his peculiarities or pursuits, his preju- dices or his passions, is a matter not altogether free from diffi- culty. It will be conceded so far, that to understand the character and tendencies of an insane patient, his morbid incli- nations and perverted desires or propensities, etc., a close atten- tion of many days, even weeks, is not unfrequently requisite.
Lunatics generally, whether or not suicidally inclined, can liardly be accused of ” wearing their hearts upon their sleeves for daws to peck at.” The cares and anxieties which fret and wear the mind, be they acute or chronic, normal or abnormal, natural or self-created, if you will, are in one certain sense not unlike the pains and aches of the body. All the ” cares and anxieties” and “pains and aches” may be and are not uncom- monly kept secret or unknown to all save him or her most con- cerned, i.e. the sufferer. Upon these grounds, then, we come to understand why it is that the tendency to suicide, the dread climax of a certain form of insanity, may be undetected and so take us by surprise, plunging whole families into grief and mourning, and friends into sad and silent astonishment. Moreover, the suicidal tendency, if existing as a prominent symptom of mental disorder, or if representing a monomaniacal condition of perverted brain mischief, may be either persistent or paroxysmal (recurrent); in the latter case it may continue but a few days or even hours, to say nothing of its impulsive and very fleeting character, under exceptional circumstances or environments. To get rid of the difficulties in the way of a right appreciation of the many signs of lunacy, it is of al1 things essential to accept at a right estimate just these two points, viz. the capacity or otherwise ” to distinguish right from wrong,” and the presence or absence of ” delusions,” so-called. It cannot be too strongly impressed on the minds of a coroner’s jury, that the measure of the intellect is no measure of insanity; that the knowledge of right and wrong exists very commonly in him to all intents and purposes mad and irresponsible. Many, very many a verdict of felo-de-se is returned, because the coroner has dwelt but too forcibly 011 the normal condition of the ” ideas ” and the ” memory’’ in him deceased, the subject of inquiry. Let it be but well known that in not a few cases of downright madness, of suicidal madness, the intellectual powers are in no way implicated in the disorder, then we shall hear very much less of the verdict of felo-de-se than at this present. It is now time that the old, the legal, notions of insanity were forgotten?shelved with many other errors of a bygone era. It appears hard that the necessity should seem to exist, to affirm, as I do here, that insanity involves not so much the perceptive and reflective mind as the emotional mind. The guiding star of man’s life and actions, be these good or bad, sane or insane, is seen not so much in his mere knowledge of things, or found only in the objective conditions which surround him at any given time, but seen and found rather in the tone and quality of his ever active affections and passions; or, what is the same thing, in his sub- jective conditions and very natural (innate) belongings. The bona-fide power to do, or not to do, this thing or that, must be sought lor elsewhere than in man’s knowledge of right and wrong. The acts (i.e. the character and conduct) of both the sane and the insane are ever dependent on?in the language of metaphor?the heart rather than the head; or, what is the same thing, the feelings or affections, rather than the intellectual powers.
” A man,” writes Shaftesbury, ” is by nothing so much himself as by his temper, and the character of his passions and affections.” These it is whichever Insolent and strong, Bear our weak minds their rapid course along, Make us the madness of their will obey, Then die, and leave us to our griefs a prey.
If the view taken here be a sound one, if it be in harmony with the laws of psychology, under circumstances of both health and disease, sanity and insanity, then does it follow that the act of suicide must be looked on from this new standpoint. If such an act be nothing more nor less than an indication, a sure and certain sign or symptom of madness, then must the present social position or claims of him or her who kills himself or herself be very materially modified, and made to harmonise with those purer and higher sympathies which each man claims as a matter of right from every other. The only inference to be drawn from the preceding line of argument amounts to this, viz. to degrade the memory of the suicide after the present fashion of the State and the State Church, and to visit his unhappy ending on his wife and children, as is now done by life assurance com- panies, are equally absurd, wrong, and vindictive, as it would be to punish him or her afflicted with a palsy, or with epilepsy, or with St. Vitus’s dance, or with any other form of nervous malady. The presence of delusions is looked on as a sure sign of insanity, as an unerring test of the presence of mental derangement. Their absence is regarded as an indication of sanity, and hence, not uncommonly, the finding of the coroner’s jury in suicidal cases. But so palpable an error as is this it behoves us to expose. If the office of coroner were held by experts, how widely different would be, on occasions such as these I allude to, the verdicts recorded. I would venture to assure coroners, if non-medical, and to remind those medical men being coroners, that when Mr. Leonard Shelford declared ” a sound mind to be wholly free from delusions,” and ” an unsound mind, on the contrary, is marked by delusion,” he did nothing more nor less than declare his profound ignorance of the human mind?both in health and disease. As one of very many symptoms of madness a delusion is not always present, in cases even of long standing, of five, ten, or fifteen years’ duration. In reading Mr. L. Shelford’s teachings ” concerning lunatics,” I am reminded with some degree of force of a remark by an old writer : ” We have never so much to say as when we start on wrong principles.” That the source or origin of the many and diverse springs of human thought and action, and their mutually dependent operation in mankind, are matters unknown to the author named, is a matter of very easy demonstration. The strong affections of our being, their force in moulding the character, their ever-widening influence over the speech and actions of man, now moving him to virtue and now to vice, and putting him ever and anon away from or outside the fair promptings of due controlling influences?these, I say, are seemingly beyond Mr. Shelford’s comprehension. He fails alike to appreciate either the source, the nature, or the effects of that ” master passion” concerning which Pope sang so charmingly and so well, and whereby one man is seen to realise the merits of an Obertin, a Melanchthon, a Basil Montague, or a Howard; and another, the demerits of a Pope Alexander, a Palmer, the Eighth Henry, or a Kajali of Bitpoor. It may be added, that when a ” delusion ” does constitute a symptom of brain disease (insanity) it is simply an expression of a dominant feeling, or tendency, or desire, an evidence of the ” master passion ” in the patient. The delusion and the ” master pas- sion ” are ever found in close contact or harmony?the one constitutes a reflex of the other ; but in every case the delusion must be held to be an effect only: the cause is plainly enough seen in the “master passion,” whatever this may be. The wish is ever father of the thought; in other words, the moral nature, the affections of each of us, are plainly enough the parent of our prejudices, of our likes and dislikes; and what are these else than the first cousins, the analogues of or to the delusions of a madman? Both prejudices and delusions act in a similar way, and have a like influence on the judgments and actions of us, on whichever side of the not very straight line which divides sanity from insanity we may be said to occupy. Shakspeare and Dickens did very plainly read the human mind aright: the former where, in Henry IV., he depicts the Prince Henry hungering, ere even his ” hour was ripe,” for his father’s ” empty chair,” and in spite of the knowledge of those kingly cares which ” had fed upon his body ” and ” eat the bearer up.” The conduct of this young prince illustrates well and forcibly the influence of his wishes on his thoughts, the irresistible force of his desires on and over his mere knowledge of things. An equally apt portrait is drawn by Dickens of the lad Walter, ” Uncle Sol’s kind friend.”
The poor boy’s temporary though “master passion,” his too emotional mind, so domineering his intellectual life, is thus eloquently referred to : ” As Walter sped along, intent only on the distress and anxiety of his kind relative, everything seemed altered. There were the usual entanglement and noise of carts, drays, omnibuses, wagons, and foot passengers ; but the misfortune that had fallen on the wooden midshipman made all things strange and new. Houses and shops were different from what they used to be, and bore Mr. Brogley’s warrant on their fronts in large characters. The broker seemed to have got hold of the very churches, for their spires soared into the sky with an unwonted air. Even the sky itself was changed and had an execution in it plainly.” But in Moore’s ” Zuleika,” as well as in George Elliott’s ” Hetty Sorel,” we recognise pretty much the same thing. The creators of both these ” heroines ” show us how and by what means the affections of our nature achieve the mastery over the mere intellect; they becoming as it were its dictator, and so creating for each in his or her turn, and under the influence of surroundings or environments, more or less accidental, the preferences and the prejudices, and the delusions even, which determine the acts or conduct of each and all of us, both those sane and insane. Both of these fictitious personages named are made to illustrate in a manner equally truthful and charming how it came to pass that in them The mind “was still all there, but turned astray, A wandering bark upon whose pathway shone All stars of heaven, save the guiding one.?Moore.
That the would-be suicide is mad, and irresponsible for the act by which he attempts the destruction of his life, must be accepted. This view of the matter has no novelty in it; the same is becoming more and more believed and accepted. The fact is well put by an old and able writer, a man of great eminence in his day : I allude to William Ixowley, M.D., once President of the College of Physicians of London : ” It is certainly clear that when a man meditates how he shall destroy life, or dwells unreasonably on any misfortune, he is no longer compos mentis; the commission, therefore, of suicide must necessarily be always considered an act oi insanity.”
“As no rational being will voluntarily give himself pain or deprive himself of life, it follows that everyone who commits suicide is undoubtedly non compos mentis, not able to reason justly, but is under the influence of false images of the mind, and therefore suicide should ever be considered an act of insanity.”
It has been said above that the State, the Church, and the public?in so far as life assurance societies are concerned?are all at close enmity with the suicide. That this is the case will be seen as I proceed. It is declared that, with a view of encouraging habits of thrift and forethought, the Government has empowered the Postmaster-General, ” acting on behalf of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt,” to ” insure the life of any person, whether male or female, who is not less than sixteen years, or more than sixty years of age,” for any sum of money between ?20 and ?100, the same to be paid 44 immediately after death to his or her representative or family.” The adoption of such a scheme of life insurance, and ” under authority of Parliament,” is at once good evidence of the recognition in high places of a sound principle of action, as well as of an amount of social advancement which must and will promote the best interests of our time and race, in so far as civilisation is concerned.
I have read through the ” Plain Rules for the Guidance of Persons desiring to insure their Lives ” with no small satisfac- tion. There is, however, one item to which I desire to draw especial attention, because it has been conceived and planned in ignorance of the laws of medical science, and is not, there- fore, in harmony with the everyday facts of pathology. The item referred to runs thus: ” If any person whose life the Postmaster-General has insured shall die by his own hands he will by so doing cancel the contract made with him. All the payments made by him will be forfeited, and no payment will be made to his or her family or representatives.’’ If to die by one’s own hands were a voluntary act, one willed, really willed by the suicide ; if to die by one’s own hands were the act of a sane man or woman, of one with the ” mens sana in colore sano if to commit suicide were to do the bidding of a healthy mind, one free from disease and unfettered by a depraved brain power?then and then only could no single objection be taken to the ” plain rules ” just quoted. But the State incurs yet further respon- sibilities in the case of the suicide : it condemns his lifeless body to insult and ignominy. The law in respect to the suicide is declared thus: ” The suicide is guilty of a double offence?one spiritual, in invading the prerogative of the Almighty, and rushing into his immediate presence uncalled for; the other temporal against the sovereign, who hath an interest in the preservation of all his subjects ; and being so doubly guilty, he (the suicide) is responsible in no ordinary sense, but for one of the very highest of crimes?a peculiar species of felony?a felony committed on oneself.” … . ” The question follows, What punishment can human laws inflict on one who has withdrawn himself from their reach ? They can only act upon what he has left behind him?his reputation and fortune ; and this the law of England formerly did with the greatest severity. It acted on the former by an ignominious burial in the highway, with a stake driven through his body, and without Christian rules of sepulture; on the latter by a forfeiture of all his goods and chattels to the king, hoping that his care for either his own reputation, or the welfare of his family, would be some motive to restrain him from so desperate and wicked an act. As time rolled on our lawgivers permitted the disuse of the stake, and were content to substitute the churchyard or other burying-ground for the highway, but on no account is it even yet permitted to perform ‘ the rites of Christian burial’ over the remains of the suicide. The law provides also that he shall be interred between nine and twelve at night, and within twenty-four hours after the inquisition. In regard to the forfeiture of property to the sovereign in virtue of his or her assumed priority to the natural heirs of the self- murderer, this is not now much insisted on; such forfeiture is nevertheless the law of the land to this day. Whilst admitting that the letter of the law herein borders on severity, yet is it some alleviation that the power of mitigation is left in the breast of the sovereign, who upon this, as on all other, occur- rences is renewed by the oath of his or her office to execute judgment in mercy.”?(Stephens.) To read the law in respect to the suicide is to be assured there is yet full scope for the reformer?for him interested in the cause of humanity and progress. It occurs to one that the Church, instead of aiding by its general passiveness, as well as by its exceptional acts, to fasten so cruel and vindictive a law on the State, may bestir itself with a view to the repeal of a law so far away from and so antagonistic to Christian doctrine. What an opportunity this for the Church in connection with the State, to cover over or modify its mistaken judgment and consequent support in regard to the slave trade of a bygone period! I fear, however, that the Church has much to learn ere it will prefer to become the champion of a sound pyschology. At this time there is not wanting evidence to assure us that Church enthusiasm goes in a contrary direction to that of progress in matters of science or in regard to the repeal of old and objectionable laws, as such affect the public weal. The annexed case is, at any rate, of interest, and its close bearing on the question here raised is a sufficient reason for calling attention to it. Some months since a lad (Francis Parker), aged thirteen, residing at or near Wellow, in the neighbourhood of Bath, committed suicide. He hung himself. The verdict of the coroner’s court was felo-de-se, and this in direct opposition to the suggestion of the coroner, who took pains to impress upon the jury that the age alone of the poor boy justified ” an open verdict,” and which, it was said, ” would be most charitable and Christian-like.” However, the Rev. Gr. Horton, of Wellow, acting certainly on the authority of the State and in strict harmony with ecclesiastical law, refused the rites of burial to the remains of the insane lad named. The newspaper press records the fact that ” When the body was brought for interment the Eev. Gr. Horton declined to allow the body to be taken into the church or to read the service,” and that ” he simply met the funeral cortege at the gate, and walked unsurpliced to the grave,” etc., etc. Herein we have a sad and practical illustration of the very partial civilisation of this present day, and of the certain supremacy of ignorance and inhumanity in this the nineteenth century. The only reference made to the state of mind of the deceased was to the effect that ” he had never shown any signs of insanity, and that the only reason that could be given for the act was that his father reproved him for not going to work sufficiently early.” But such a statement is without doubt unproven and very short of the facts. That the reason of the suicidal act did not appear is certain; that it was to be got at is equally ” cer- tain.” In cases of the kind that I have taken the trouble to investigate?and these are neither few nor far between?I have in no single instance failed to obtain the evidence necessary to prove the insanity of the suicide.
Had the interest of the reverend gentleman named gone in a direction other than it did, had he been prompted to seek some particulars of the lad’s antecedents, it cannot be well doubted that the results would have been so far satisfactory as to have saved the Church?the State Church?this one sad demonstration of those wretched and bad old times out of which have come the ignorance and inhumanity now so much in the way of truth and progress, so hostile to a sound religion, and so far removed from that form of civilisation to be realised in the future; and to which the best and wisest of mankind are looking with eyes ever bright and eager.
A female servant some months since committed suicide by throwing herself from Clifton Suspension Bridge. The poor girl was said to have been of good character but of a jealous disposition and of a quick temper. She had, it was said, quarrelled with her sweetheart, and appeared excited. What is an important fact in the history of this case, she had already made an unsuccessful attempt on her life by taking a poisonous dose of laudanum. The excuse she made to her mistress for so doing was ” the behaviour of her young man.” That the same behaviour left its depressing and painful effects on her mind is proved by these few words written by the deceased on a ” piece of paper” left in her bedroom, viz. “‘Tis his fault.” It was given also in evidence that u the deceased constantly complained of the conduct of her lover, and that they had quarrelled ” but recently. The girl appeared to the “toll-keeper” of the bridge ” to have more on her mind than he would like to have on his.” He added to his evidence these words, viz. ” There was something in the expression of her eyes,” whilst ” she argued with him until the last.” The jury, in the face of the above facts, returned a verdict of felo-de-se. Truly this poor girl killed herself, but the morbid state of her mind, ” the mind turned astray,” with its ” guiding star” lost or eclipsed by a deep and overwhelming grief, was altogether ignored. Sad indeed was the poor young creature’s ending; painful is it to reflect on the want of medical and other aids to the relief of her deep necessities ; aids so manifestly needed in the progress of the case. The ignorance of the jury may well be lamented. What could such men know of the human mind, or appreciate it in its many and varied phases of being ? How forcibly does the fate of Lucy Emma Durrant remind us of these few lines of Hood :
All day she has -wandered through the town, Charity none would give; Sorrow and want have worn her down? Why should she wish to live? Over the bridge, with a fearful splash, Into the darksome wave, And the bubbling waters mournfully dash O’er the poor suicide’s grave!
The Daily Telegraph, commenting on the verdict of felo-de-se in the case of Lucy Emma Durrant, says : ” We suppose that this dense verdict meant that the unhappy girl was to be interred at dead of night, and without the rights of Christian burial. She is gone, and it cannot matter whether her obsequies have been conducted with all the accompaniments of plumes, catafalques, and lighted tapers and the awful strains of the Dies Irce, or whether her poor corse has been cast on a dung- hill. The verdict of coroners’ juries cannot affect her one way or the other; and the Bristol edict of felo-de-se can only have the effect of outraging the feelings of her surviving relations and friends, if Lucy Emma Durrant has left anybody to care for her memory. All the circumstances of the miserable story point to and strengthen the hypothesis that the self-murderess was suffering from temporary insanity. It did not seem to occur to the Bristol jury that despair has two aspects, one of depression and one of exaltation; and that the very deliberation with which this unhappy young woman contemplated self- destruction, and compassed the means of accomplishing her project, may have been distinct symptoms of mental aberration.
Persons suffering from suicidal mania, yet unable to persuade a druggist to sell them in a single dose sufficient poison wherewith to make an end of their lives, have been known to purchase pennyworths of laudanum at different druggists’ shops until they had obtained an adequate supply for their purpose. As we have said, the irrational verdict given at Bristol can be of no account to a dead woman, and the jury might just as well have handed the body of Lucy Emma Durrant over to the College of Surgeons or the Cremation Society as return the verdict they did; but it is nevertheless expedient to discourage the delivery of stupid and cruel decisions which, while they cannot harm the dead, may grievously wound the feelings of the living, and it is shocking to reflect that a few years ago the verdict of felo-de-se would have comprised the subjection of the deceased to the most barbarous indignities, and that Lucy Emma Durrant would have been buried at the conjuncture of four cross roads with a stake through her heart. We have repudiated the most revolting features of our bygone observances in the case of suicide; but it is still difficult to perceive what advantage can be gained by the verdict we condemn.” The subjoined is remarkable, inasmuch as the evidence, though so strongly in favour of the insanity of John Page, was ignored by the jury, and with the effect of realising a verdict thus strangely worded, viz. ” Deceased took away his own life by hanging himself.” The coroner, it should be added, had previously declared, in his summing up, that he had the greatest possible horror of the expression feio-de se. The antecedents of this suicide were precisely those which characterise insanity. The history of the poor fellow is as follows : Six years before his untimely death the wife had consulted a medical man concerning him. At this time, it appears, he suffered from various delusions; these had reference to certain of his neigh- bours, whom he accused of seeking the means to destroy him; his acts became strange and his conduct much altered and eccentric, without anything like sufficient reason. One witness (a neighbour, who knew deceased well) declared him to have been “a queer- tempered man ” and ” had got peculiar ways.” ” He had not,” he said, ” been like a man in his proper senses for ten years past; he was sullen and uncouth. He was sober until within the last few years.” A second witness said, ” his bad temper and sullen manner commenced about nine years ago.” A friend described John Page as ” a man with a downcast appearance, who would seldom answer when spoken to.*’ More even than this, Mr. Audland (the family medical attendant) deposed on oath that he ” had no doubt, according to the medical definition of the term insanity, that the deceased was insane when he visited him five or six years ago, and that he was then a fit person for an asylum.” The foregoing most important information was con- firmed by the following evidence of Mr. John Page, junior:?
He said: ” I live at Maindee, near Newport. I left home first through my father’s ill-treatment, and went to London, but he wished me to return, and I came back. He was in the habit of drinking then, and was very violent if he was crossed. He was difficult to please, and was very obstinate. He quar- relled with my mother at times. He was in the habit of saying, ‘ They’ll finish me before the morning.’ I and my mother would ask him who he thought was going to injure him, and he would say, ‘ They’ll tell them by and by.’ Mother would say, 4 Take and hush, John,’ and he would get ten times worse, and we were afraid to stay with him. I visited him last summer, in May or June, and when he was going to bed he said, ‘ This is the last sunset I shall see; they’ll finish me.’ I would say, ‘ Take and hush, father,’ and then he would say I was going to do it. He liked me at times, and at other times he did not like me. He would make friends with me at one time, and hit me another. When he would come to me in the field, he would say, ‘ I daresay they’ll finish me before I come back, however you may go on.’ I have spoken to many about it. I have not told all I know, because we did not wish it known. I knew my mother was in danger, and she would leave him when he be- came very irritable, and then he woidd feel the loss of her and would send for her; and upon her return he would in a day or two be as bad as ever. I have told parties much the same. I have said how bad father was, and how he did go on.” The Coroner. ” Can you recollect anybody whom you have told of this extraordinary delusion?that lie was to be destroyed by someone ? “
Witness. ” I have told Mrs. Dibdin and others.” Examination resumed. ” I did not talk to many, because all the neighbours knew what he was.’’ The Coroner. ” Have you anything else to say ? ” Witness. “There are several gentlemen on the jury who knew my father.” The Coroner. ” Yes; but they must be guided only by the evidence given before them.” A Juryman. ” How long has your mother lived apart from your father at any one time ? ” PART II. VOL. IV. NEW SERIES. S 242 ON” SUICIDE, IN ITS SOCIAL RELATIONS. Witness. ” I can’t say?a good bit?she was backwards and forwards.” The Foreman of the Jury. ” Was it a month at any time ? ” Witness. ” Yes, sir; more than that.”
The summing up of the coroner was in these words, viz. ” He was bound to say that the law of England presumed that every man was sane until the contrary was proved. The legal definition was, that a man must be aware of the difference be- tween right and wrong. It was not sufficient to prevent a man from liability to crime that he had some moral aberrations, but it must be proved that he was suffering from mental aberration. To prove that a man was sullen, debased, and depraved was not to prove insanity according to the legal definition. If a man who was of good temper became of a bad temper; if a man who had been kind-hearted became brutal, it was not a proof of insanity; but if a man, through drunkenness, became in such a frenzy as to be unable to control himself, then that would be insanity. Therefore they would not be justified in acting upon Mr. Audland’s evidence in that case; he was right medically, but not legally.”
That Mr. Carter, coroner, is a much better lawyer than lie is a physiologist no words of mine are required to prove. If moral aberration does not imply insanity, then do we know nothing of the matter. If the teachings of the coroner’s court are to the effect that a change in the character of an individual to the extent of altering the very mental elements of which a man or woman is compounded, does not indicate an insane mind, then it is high time that such courts should be called on to amend their manners. Can it be that the laws of cerebral pathology are to continue to be so shamefully ignored, or that truth is to remain so dishonoured and so held in bondage ? When shall we see the hard fetters forged by our ignorant sires, in the sad and dreary and corrupt old times, broken up like other old lumber and cast far away! I would ask, is it not a duty to make an effort to break the legal chains from off medical science, and give to it the necessary impulse or force to protect the sufferer and the insane from ” The world’s cold law.”
The press of Bristol has recorded, within a comparatively short time, the suicide of W. F., described as a ” ship captain.” He Avas found lying in bed with his throat cut. In the face of evidence calculated in a special manner to demonstrate the existence in him of mental derangement, the jury returned a verdict of felo-de-se. That I am right in my estimate of the merits of the case, you will perceive when I tell you the story ON SUICIDE, IN ITS SOCIAL RELATIONS. 243 of this person. For tlie past three years his previous good fortune seems to have left him. From having commanded his own vessel he was reduced to the necessity of accepting employ- ment ; he lost a very fair property, and was worsted In a law- suit ; he became very straitened in circumstances, and, ere long, out of health. An old friend of the deceased’s, a witness before the coroner’s court, said that ” his difficulties oppressed him very much ; he was reduced to poverty.” He, the late Mr. F., com- plained that his losses would ” drive him wild,” and that he (Mr. F.) seemed vacant and quite absorbed in grief. This witness said he had received a letter from deceased, in which he declared he ” should never recover his position.” One letter written by the late Mr. W. F. contains these words, viz.:? ” My senses are almost exhausted, my fingers tremble whilst I am writing this, but I cannot help it. 0 ! my dear wife and dear child, pity and forgive me! But I cannot help it, my poor heart is in a flame. If I could see you once more! But I am afraid that before the close of another day I shall be no more in this world. Adieu, dear friend! Mind you do as I have said. Your affectionate cousin, W. F.”
A letter to his wife and daughter, dated January 14th, and subsequently redated January 17th, was amongst those found in possession of deceased. It was written in a rambling way, and in fragments, evidently penned at different times down to within a short time of his death. I give the following extracts as specimens of the contents of letters read:?
” I now commence to tell you my melancholy story. I am in an awful state of mind ; I find everything has gone against me; my mind in all business matters is at an end. My dear tender wife, it was a great struggle the day I felt my heart was breaking?if you remember, I came and kissed your dear face the second time, for the last in this world He has threatened to have me before the Marine Board, so I cannot bear the idea of being brought up by them. My dear, when I come to look round, I cannot see anything like a friend who would give me a single meal’s victuals. I have no friend on earth but you and my dear little maid. I am got old, and I am not able to work now as I used to do, so I am entirely gone out of my mind, and by the time you get this I am afraid I shall be in another world. I hope and trust that God will help you in your great trouble. My two dear friends, forget me as soon as possible, and never tbink that you had any knowledge of me and of all my troubles. 0 ! when I think of it it drives me mad ! Adieu, my beloved wife ! May God give you strength to overcome this terrible trouble. I do love you, but I cannot overcome this trouble. I am bound to leave you, my own dear and tender cliild. When will you and your dear aunt be able to read this most horrible declaration ? I am well aware it will be a dreadful shock, but, my dear child, I am compelled now to do what I could wish in any way to avoid, but I can’t. 0! my two very dear creatures, I can see you in your agonies about me, but I can’t help it. But tell Edward (and let him see this) that if he does not comply with what I have said, I will trouble him, if it is in my power, after death. He had better take you both away from them, where you will be by yourselves. 0! my God, what am I writing of ? but I am deranged, and not in my right mind ! “
” Friday, 3 p.m.?The last I shall ever write. My watch will be here at Jenkins’, and my clothes and carpet-bag. I have wandered about Bristol in a sad way, but now I am afraid this day will be my last. I wish I had taken my dear child up with me, then things would have taken another turn, but now I am alone, and trouble has overcome me. My dear wife, it will be a dreadful blow to you and my dear child. If I had the means I would go anywhere to get some work ; I would be glad to work my fingers to the bone, but I cannot get away. I would go to Liverpool, but I have not the means; so I have fixed my mind on what I shall do to-night. I am afraid I shall be compelled to leave you.” This letter was enclosed in an envelope addressed to his wife, and stamped ready for posting. In other letters and scraps of memoranda the deceased said he had not had twopennyworth of food for two days. Upon an envelope was the following : ” My dear wife, I have no letter to-day. Now I am done for. I am driven mad ! God have mercy on you both! ” In addition to the above I am in a position to state, on the best private authority, that ” W. F. was subject to severe pains in the head,” and that he often walked the whole night in his room with his hands clasped over his head in agony.” Furthermore, that ” for some days before his death ” an old and intimate friend with whom he was staying ” noticed a great difference in him.” That the fate of W. F. added one to the present long list of erring judgments for which the coroner’s court is responsible there can be no kind of doubt.
The next case occurred at Iron Acton, a small village some nine miles from Bristol. G. W., a labourer, an aged man, was found dead on the floor of a cowshed, with a rope round his neck. It was declared in evidence that he had committed suicide by hanging himself, but that the cord had given way with his weight. As there was no kind of evidence forthcoming as to the state of the poor fellow’s mind, the coroner and jury returned a verdict of felo-de-se. I mention this case because I would suggest the propriety, under similar circumstances, of another form of verdict, one of ” temporary insanity,” or ” destroyed himself whilst of unsound mind.” To the notice of G. W.’s suicide in the local paper there was appended these few words : ” The corpse was interi-ed without religious rites in Iron Acton churchyard at night, in the presence of a number of persons.”
I come now to the consideration of ordinary life assurance societies. It is seen that they, like the Postmaster-General ” acting on behalf of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt”?like, in fact, the State and the State Church?manifest, with scarcely an exception, the same principle of retaliation, or spirit of revenge, in their mode of dealing with their clients. The relationship between the insuring and the insured is, speaking too generally, wanting to this time in justice and fair dealing. It is of a nature very plainly demonstrative of what Fourier calls the ” incolierencies ” of society, or of the divided and antagonistic interests seen everywhere among us. At any rate, such an ” incoherence” it is which, more than anything else, induces the prudent man to insure his life, and so to provide for those dependent on him. To this end he submits to a rigid scrutiny into the state of his general health, botli mental and corporal; he subscribes to certain rules and regulations, and undertakes the payment annually of a certain sum of money, in the full hope and confidence that, whenever he shall die, his heirs and successors will enjoy the pecuniary provision he has been at the trouble and cost to insure to them. The lite assurance society, on the other hand, undertakes, under certain restric- tions imposed and accepted, to pay to the said heirs and suc- cessors the sum of money for which the deceased lias so insured his life. Nothing can seem fairer or more consistent than this. Let us, however, look a little further into the matter, somewhat more deeply into its merits and demerits. When A, B, or C insured his life he enjoyed good health, his animal spirits were high and buoyant. Little recked he of the future?its associa- tions or consequences to those fated to be left behind him. Disease overtakes him, not pneumonia, or erysipelas, or acute heart affection, but insanity of a particular form. He is the subject of cerebro-mental disorder, the presence of which involves a deeply-seated, and mysterious, and hidden propensity to suicide ?a propensity which in itself lies at the very root of all other and accessory mental suffering in him, being the cause and not the mere attendant on or consequence of the dreadful melancholy which afflicts him. A, B, or C is said to be low-spirited; his friends perhaps laugh at him, but forget to condole and sympathise with him, or attempt to divert his attention, or, what is most important, to call in medical assistance. Mental reaction takes place now and then, and he appears and acts like himself, again to relapse and yield involuntarily to the heavy nightmare of his disordered thoughts and feelings.
The abnormal action progresses, the propensity named grows in strength and endurance, and suicide is the result?the sad and fatal climax to disease, which came not at the bidding of the deceased, and which persisted in spite of the patient’s hopes and prayers to the contrary. The unhappy victim of an all-powerful organic law has passed from among us; the fond father or affectionate brother or friend is no more; his inten- tions towards his heirs and successors are frustrated; his once- cherished hopes have borne no fruit; all the provisions he made for others near and dear to him are as nothing now; the office in which his life was insured has declared the policy forfeited by the dread act which terminated his being. The directors have the heirs and survivors of their late client at an advantage which can hardly be defended. I desire to be understood as anxious only to establish and maintain a strict measure of justice as between the insuring and insured ; but how can this be, if the latter, prostrated by disease and im- pelled to self-destruction, is rendered so responsible for his involuntary act as to be denied, in the person of his wife and children, for example’s sake, the pecuniary provision he bona fide purchased, it may be five, or ten, or twenty years before his decease. It may be replied, the contract was a fair one, A, or B, or C, read, no doubt, the prospectus of the society insuring his life; he was aware of its several provisions, including that one relating to suicide. But this is not sufficient; the plea falls short of the difficulty. The insured chose not the dread act which cost him so much, and his wife and children it may be yet more. Here, then, I ground my objection to the present plans of all insurances on life, and would submit that, in regarding the act of suicide as one consequent on brain disorder, and altogether inseparable from it, it is demanded as a social right and as a simple act of justice as between man and man that death by suicide be henceforth regarded and accepted as of the same involuntary, unavoidable, and natural character as belongs to death succeeding to an ordinary com- pound fracture, a fall from a height producing concussion of the brain, typhus fever, haemorrhage from an accidental wound, pneumonia, erysipelas, or what not, and that therefore all life assurance offices do from henceforth omit all and whatsoever reference to or provisions in connection with suicide. Let all such societies or offices, however, make their calculations accordingly, and with due regard (pecuniary regard) to the social right and the very simple act of justice now solicited by me.
The following is a case to the point:?Some years since a medical friend, after suffering both in mind and body for some two or three months, destroyed himself by prussic acid. An inquest was held, and the act of suicide was referred to ” temporary insanity.” Many years before this sad catastrophe he insured his life for the sum of ?5,000 in the United King- dom Life Insurance Office. On the application of my late friends’ executors to the secretary of the office named, the sum insured was directly and distinctly refused. The board, how- evex-, expressed themselves as prepared to pay the value which the policy would have realised the day before the death. Some lengthened correspondence ensued, and it resulted in the offer, on the part of the society, to return ” the entire of the premium received by the office in the policy in question.” But in order, as it would seem, to clench the matter, this offer was declared to remain in force for five whole days only. This may be considered, under the circumstances, as rather sharp practice. It is worthy of remark, too, as giving interest to this case, that the bonuses were not allowed to the executors of my late friend by the directors of the United Kingdom Life Insurance Office, although such are declared to be ” purely reversionary and payable at death along with the sum insured, where the desire of the party most interested in the policy is not expressed to have the premium reduced.” Such was the pre- cise fact in the instance here cited for consideration. The directors of the United Kingdom Life Insurance Office have called their conduct ” most liberal;” but all they should say of it is, it is legal?a poor excuse. I may add, the case was referred to several persons connected with the first offices in the country, and they one and all declared against the United Kingdom Office.
But to every rule there are exceptions, and it gives me much satisfaction to record this one : others may be known. The Western Times is responsible for the subjoined ” good example,” very properly so called.
” A short time since a clerk in Exeter, under the pressure of severe mental affliction, arising from distressed circumstances, committed suicide by drowning. His life was assured in the Provident Clerks’ Mutual Life Assurance Association, and the policy was of course forfeited by the act; but the beard of directors, considering that from the state of his mind at the time, the act might almost be regarded as part of his disease, at once decided on paying the policy in full. The deceased left a widow and children, to whom the sum is of great importance, being indeed tlieir all. An example like this needs no comment.”
It seems strange that the ” Postmaster-General” and the directors of life assurance companies have failed to this time to recognise a something like degrees of responsibility with all of their clients committing suicide. Even if the position claimed herein as to the innate or subjective cause of each one and every phase of suicide, and the consequent non-liability of the suffering party to penal consequences of any kind, direct or indirect, be ignored, utterly repudiated: surely it must be apparent that if we assume, for argument sake, one sane to commit suicide, and that he should pay the penalty, should forfeit all and whatever claims he may, under the ordinary circumstances of death, have had on any given assurance com- pany?admit the right on the part of this or that insurance company to ” cancel the contract made with him,” to keep back ” all the payments made by him,” and to withhold all payments ” to his or her family or representatives,” surely the same view cannot be taken, a similar course of proceedings cannot be thought equally applicable to a case where the author of his or her own death is declared by the coroner’s court to have been insane, and so suffering commit suicide; but such is to this present time the fact. Furthermore, cases occur, now and then, in which the mental disease in him or her the prey to the suicidal tendency is of a secondary growth, or the outcome of fever, or erysipelas, or of accidental injury. There appears to be every reason to regard these several parties, though equally suicidal, as the subjects of various degrees or measures of responsibility. If this view of the matter be accepted, then is it imperative, on authori- ties of whatever kind, to modify, in some way, their present mode of dealing with such several clients. Each one of these kinds or classes of suicide should be dealt with in an especial and exclusive manner. In the eyes of ” directors” and of the ” Postmaster-General” suicide is simply suicide. Neither the objective nor the subjective conditions of the much and deeply-afflicted man or woman receive the slightest consideration?such environments avail nothing. I would put it thus, for argument sake: the sane man and the insane man, the prey both of them of or to the suicidal tendency, are esteemed alike, are treated alike; no account is taken of the antecedents, the’personal history of either one or the other. The two following instances of suicide are to the point, one the consequence of protracted fever with delirium, the other of the delirium induced by an attack of small-pox, aggravated or very quickly succeeded by ” erysipelas in the head.”
” Frightful Suicide in Bethnal Green.?Last evening Mr. Richards, Deputy-Coroner, resumed at the ‘ Butler’s Arms,’ Butler Street, Bethnal Green, an inquiry relative to the suicide of Emily Manning, aged thirty-five years. Richard H. Man- ning, 2 Nottisford Street, Bethnal Green, widower of the deceased, said that he had been a clerk at a gas works, but was latterly a labourer at the docks, earning 2s. 6d. a day. On last Monday morning, when going out to his work, he left the deceased in bed, ill from fever, and she asked him to kiss her. Witness did not suspect that she was going to commit suicide. She had six children, and there were eight people to be sup- ported out of his wages. The rent was 5s. 6d. a week. Wit- ness did what he could for his wife. Ellen Manning, a little girl eleven years of age, said that at nine o’clock on the morning in question her mother, who was ill in bed, told her to fetcli her father’s razors out of the other room. Witness refused at first, but upon her mother’s threatening her she brought them. She was then told to leave the room, and she did so for an instant, but upon looking in she saw her mother cutting her throat. Witness was terrified and ran for help. John Nokes, 2 East Street, Bethnal Green, lamplighter, said that the deceased was his daughter. She was always fretting through distress. She had eight people to support on 15s. a week. Poverty overcame her. She worked until she could work no longer. Mr. R. Mendola, M.R.C.S. Lond., proved that deceased died from very severe wounds in her throat twenty minutes after she had inflicted them upon herself. The jury returned a verdict of ‘Suicide while of unsound mind from the delirium of fever.’ “
” A Melancholy Death.?An actor well-known on the Paris boards, M. Charles Lemaitre, son of the eminent veteran actor F. Lemaitre, was attacked about a week since with small-pox, which epidemic is now prevalent in the French capital. He was atteuded at his apartments on the fourth story, 40 Boulevard de Strasbourg, by a sick nurse. Three days since his condition became alarming, erysipelas in the head having set in, and his reason became affected. On Tuesday evening, during the momentary absence of the nurse, M. Lemaitre sprang out of bed, opened the window, and was about to cast himself out, when the nurse returned, and seizing hold of his shirt endea- voured to restrain him, shouting for assistance, while the un- fortunate patient in his turn cried out that he was being murdered. A crowd collected, some of whom rushed up stairs, and had just entered the room when the protracted struggle was brought to a close by the poor madman breaking from the hold of the nurse, and casting himself headlong into the street, where he was immediately afterwards picked up quite dead. M. F. Lemaitre, the father, who is still playing in Paris, arrived shortly after the catastrophe, and was overwhelmed by the fearful calamity which had bereaved him of a beloved son.”
Let me ask, on what possible grounds directors refuse the payment of moneys to the representatives of any such as the actor above named, and poor E. Manning. The act of self-destruction in both of them was as involuntary as either the fever or the small-pox which begot the delirium; and this it was which proved the immediate cause of these self-sought though unwilling deaths. Hence would have resulted the validity of any assumed claims on the part of representatives of either of these much and deeply-afflicted persons. The present anomalous relative position of certain assurance offices and the assured is further illustrated by the fact that, in cases where the policy shall have been assigned, ” for adequate pecuniary consideration,” to a third party, then, and in that case only, the act of suicide does not invalidate the policy. Doubtless this arrangement is dictated by a mere expediency; nevertheless it is not in any harmony with the ” theory,” as it has been called, of ” facilitating suicide ” among those who are in pecuniary trouble, and acting on the morbid idea of benefit- ing their families at their own fatal cost. But this is but a ” theory,” and a very wild one too, and may be left therefore to its own fate. However, it will directly suggest itself, that the man who kills himself but to enrich a wife or children, has but to con- trive the assignment of his policy to a third party, and so realise his object at the cost of the office assuring his life.
It should be known that very frequently patients, though suffering much that is known only to themselves, go about their daily pursuits, incurring their ordinary and routine responsibilities, hoping and praying, too, that relief, in some one or other shape may come to them. I have known such recover, and then, but not before, recite their dread ex- perience and too painful promptings to suicide. Others, not unlike them, have been brought to my attention, in whom I have detected, not so much by the speech, as by the eye and countenance, the gait and manner, the hidden and painful secret of the mental life. This primary, or monomaniacal form of suicidal mania it is which, becoming complicated with or terminating in attempts at self-destruction, furnishes the daily press with so large a quantity of sensational matter ; and, what is more, occurring not unfrequently to the head of a family, plunges the domestic circle into a sudden and widespread grief. The annexed cases are to the point. A young man, losing his usual activity and spirits, and becoming silent and morose, appeared statuelike and as if spellbound with sudden and severe emotion. He spoke not, neither did his countenance vary, whatever was said to him, until, suspecting the nature of the case, I said, ” ou have, I think, a deep and painful struggle going on within you; you feel frightened, do you not ?” He replied in a hesitating and anxious voice, ” I have.” “You are prompted to do yourself an injury?” His answer was, ” Aye, that is it.”
A highly respected tenant-farmer, a man whose health is for the most part good, living some four or five miles from Bristol, awoke suddenly about G a.m., after a restless night. He felt, as he said, ” very nervous and uncomfortable; he didn’t know what could be the matter.” (These were his words.) However, he lost no time, as he informed me; he threw on his clothes, and ran, rather than walked, to my house, fearing, as he hurried on, that he should yield to the temptation of his too deranged mind, so suddenly and completely frenzied by the suicidal propensity. His appearance; excited, restless, and crying, alarmed my ser- vants. I was called up. On entering the room, he reached his hand towards me, exclaiming, ” I shall do it! I shall do it! Pray, pray save me !?oh ! save me !” I learned that for some previous days he had been indisposed, and had therefore con- sulted Mr. Salmon, of Thornbury. I attended the poor fellow with Mr. Salmon. He very soon got well.
I admitted at Northwoods a young lady, the subject of mania. She seemed sufficiently well after a time to leave and join her family circle. As a matter of prudence, however, she left on trial. She was away seven days only. In the evening of the seventh day she presented herself for re-admission, begging me to receive her at once, because, as she confessed, she felt so very unsafe away, and that she was confident, if she had remained at home, she must have thrown herself ” out ot that very high window,” meaning a particular one on the top of a certain staircase. It is for cases similar to these described in whose behalf I would be understood to plead.
The following extracts from letters written by authorities on the subject at issue explain the law as it affects the payment, or rather non-payment, of policies in cases of suicide:? 1st. ” If the office insist upon the clause of forfeiture ‘ in respect of suicide’ the law will uphold them in so doing. It was at one time thought that such clause only contemplated a felonious suicide, i.e. where the verdict of the jury was felo-de-se; but it is now decided that it includes all voluntary self- destruction, and that consequently the state of mind of the deceased is not material. ?
2nd. ” Every policy of assurance effected by an individual on his own life, and terminated by suicide, must be considered as forfeited and be dealt with accordingly, unless such policy of assurance had been previously made over or assigned to a third party… . That the only compensation which the directors at present have in their power to afford … is to make an allowance equal to what would have been given for a surrender of the policy on the day previous to that on which the forfeiture took place… . The decision in the Court of Exchequer in the case of’ Clift versus Schwabb,’ the ruling case at pre- sent, is to the point. When the question was tried, and when it was found that, if the person whose life was insured killed himself, knowing the probable consequences of that act, and did that act voluntarily, intending such consequences to follow, the policy is voided, notwithstanding that it should happen that at the time he was insane, and did not know the moral quality of the act.”
3rd. It appears that in some cases the directors, “rather than have their establishment blown upon by an action, will come to terms, and pay something more than the mere value of the policy,” i.e. they prefer not to act up to the letter of the law, but rather to use a discretionary power in the matter. A poor satisfaction this to the family of the deceased. There is hope that the law, as above set forth, is even now doomed, in a measure, for I find that the Clerical, Medical, and General pay in cases of suicide, when the ” assurances have been in force twelve months;” and that, in 1858, the London Life Association determined to ” pay such claims in all cases where the policies had been in existence for at least three years.” Further, the Gresham Life Assurance Society has declared, through one of its officials, and privately, that ” all accidental deaths, whether by suicide or otherwise, are claims at once payable under the policy. The only question that really remains is, whether it is legal in a document to facilitate, even in appearance, the commission of crime in the eye of the law.” … “In practice, even in the worst cases of suicide, the money is paid” … ” but in theory, the facilitating of suicide among those who are in pecuniary trouble, under the morbid idea of benefiting their families, is still a questio vexata.” ” With reference to official practice, I apprehend there would be no difficulty in putting upon yours,* or any other policy, words which would render the bona fide clearer.” It is now some years since the Gresham so declared itself; but I find no mention made of these very important items in its later prospectus.
On tlie authority of the Lancet it was years since announced that our transatlantic cousins are, in so far as life assurance matters go, in material advance of ourselves, inasmuch as the “New York Life Insurance Company offers the special advantages to insurers that suicide does not cause a forfeiture of the policy. The view adopted is that suicide is an evidence of insanity, and insanity being the result of disease, suicide is nothing more than an ordinary life contingency.”
Dr Hitchman, when writing on the social wrongs perpetuated on the insane, has these words, viz.:?
” It is a great wrong to a large class of sufferers, that suicide, the result of’ unsound mind,’ should he regarded as a fault, and he made to entail penal consequences on the friends of the sufferer, and that to a greater extent than even personal vices or positive crimes. Of course, the directors of life associa- tions do not positively assert that such a catastrophe is a crime; hut, nevertheless, they place the unfortunate lunatic in the same catalogue as the felon who dies ‘ by the hand of justice,’ and of him who falls while attempting the life of a fellow creature; or, to use their own words, ‘ in consequence of a duel’; and they entail nearly the same conditions upon the relatives of each, the only difference being that the directors have a power, in the first case, to pay a something not exceeding the value of the policy on the day preceding the decease of the assured. But it will be observed that this meagre act of j ustice is annexed as a favour?not enrolled as a right; and will be at all times dependent on the character of the directors for the time being and, possibly, too, on their frame of mind (from various causes) at the particular juncture at which application is made even for this poor pittance.”
” It is quite fair that the societies should be protected from the mischievous results of duelling …. biit a gross wrong is inflicted whenever the policy is made void in consequence, of the effect of a disease, over which the individual insured had 710 control. If a person in a state of somnambulism walked from his bedroom, impressed with the notion that he was strolling in green fields or level roads, and thereby fell down a deep staircase, and dislocated his neck, the life office must necessarily regard this as an accident, and would pay over to the executors of the deceased the sum for which he had insured. And is not suicide in a person of ‘ unsound mind ‘ as purely the result of influences over which he had no control as was the fall of the somnambulist ? Do they not both die in consequence of a disturbed condition of the same organ ? Is not suicide one of the effects of insanity, as asphyxia is of epilepsy ? Is not the suicidal act in such a case the unavoidable result, as far as the individual is concerned, of the disease under which he was suffering ? Science and experience answer in the affirmative. Then why should the death of one entail a greater pecuniary loss to the survivors than the other ? Why should a disease of the brain involve great dishonour and great loss ? Is it right? is it just?that a calamity which none can guard against? no, not even the wisest and the best?should be regarded as a fault, and mulcted as a crime ? Ought the good, the gentle, the genius-fraught Cowper to have brought a pecuniary loss to his friends, beside the irreparable moral shock which would have been experienced had his insane efforts been consummated ? Are not our best feelings outraged at the thought of any company grasping a money profit from the untimely end of a Chatterton ? ” “Let us not, as now, attach a severer penalty to an unavoid- able disease than to recklessness and vice. A man, for instance, after his assurance has been effected, may become dishonest, drunken, and disorderly, a pest to society, and a curse to his famil}*; he may shorten his existence by continued intemper- ance, or he ma}7 become the veriest debauchee, contaminating all around him with whom he has influence, and ultimately sink a victim to the most disgusting and most loathsome of diseases, entirely caused by his own vices, and yet his policy would be safe. Whereas, if instead of being drunken and vicious, he should be temperate and virtuous, devoting all his energies to the well-being of his family, and the advantage of his race; and if, like the good and talented Romilly, he should, in the midst of these exertions, fall by a disease which destroys the instinct of self-preservation or reverses its function, then, alas! his policy becomes void, and that resource, which by much sacrifice he had provided for his orphans or his wife, is taken from them in the hour of greatest need !”
” This state of things requires redress, and it concerns all men. The disease which is thus stigmatised and fined is not a partial one. The good, the brave, the young, the beautiful, the old, the dastardly, and the base are alike its victims.” ” Neither the genius of a Southey nor a Tasso, nor the wit and vigour of a Swift, nor the tenderness of a Cowley, nor the piety or talent of a Cruden or a Hall, nor the genial humour and kind-heartedness of a Lamb, can exempt us from its influence. Let, then, such anomalies be removed from our laws and institutions. Let us be wise and just, acting in perfect harmony with the laws of science and the dictates of religion. Let us rise superior to the ignorance and follies of the middle ages, and regard all diseases and their consequences in a like spirit; or, if making any difference, bestowing our sympathies with the greatest intensity on that unhappy being who, while suffering from the pangs of the body, is harassed by the troubles of the mind, and who, by his very helplessness, appeals alike to the justice and to the charity of our common nature.”
It is concluded, from the facts stated here and from the line of argument adopted, that the act of suicide is at all times and under every variety of circumstances but one of the many symptoms of madness, an effect of disease of the brain ; and this being the case, the same must no longer be held as a sufficient cause for withholding ” the rites of Christian burial,” nor of denying to the survivors or representatives of him or her the subject of suicide the money value of any given policy. I claim, therefore, as a matter of the commonest justice, as from man to man, the repeal of the present law in regard to the self-murderer, his abolition or freedom from all and every responsibility, and, as a consequence, the non-liability of his or her heirs or representatives to suffer either in health or in purse in any way whatever.
If the science of psychology is to prove of good service in tlie cause of civilisation, if it be destined to add to the blessings of social life, to promote and diffuse welldoing and happiness throughout society, and further the great and noble cause of truth and Christian charity among men, then will the cause of him or her, driven by an inexorable law to seek release from sorrow and suffering in death, come in for a large share of the attention of the really wise and good, of those ” Whose actions teach ” More virtue than a sect can preach and not the less of those who . ” hold that ever “Virtue and knowledge are endowments greater ” Than nobleness and riches.”
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