It appears on evidence of the most authentic description, that, from the year 1827 to that of 1830, there were committed throughout France no less than 6900 suicides! that is to say, an average of nearly 1800 per annum! It should, however, be remembered, that this calculation is founded only upon judicial documents, in which are included merely those cases of suicide in which death has followed, or in which legal proceedings were taken; so that it is not improbable that many more attempts were made to perpetrate this crime of which the public is quite ignorant.
Taking up this fact, let us consider that the number of crimes against the person amounts yearly in France to 1900. Now, it appears that more than 600 of these crimes consist of attempts on the lives of others; so that the conclusion cannot be resisted, that every time an individual in France meets with a violent death, in any other way but by accident or mere homicide, there are three chances to one that he has committed suicide.
M. Guerry makes a transition to the geographical position of this crime throughout the several arbitrary divisions, and he finds the state of the case to be as follows:—
Out of every hundred suicides which take place on the average every year, there are committed in the
| Suicides. | ||
| Northern | division | 51 |
| Southern | — | 11 |
| Eastern | — | 16 |
| Western | — | 13 |
| Central | — | 9 |
Another view of the proportion of suicides in France is, that which takes place in the number of them, as compared with the amount of the population. It is as follows:—
Suicides in proportion to Population.
| Northern | division | 1 in | 9,853 |
| Eastern | — | 1 in | 21,734 |
| Central | — | 1 in | 27,393 |
| Western | — | 1 in | 30,499 |
| Southern | — | 1 in | 30,876 |
It is proper to bear in mind, that in the single department of the Seine, there are perpetrated every year nearly the sixth part of the whole number of suicides which take place in all the eighty-six departments of France. It is said, however, that the greater portion of those persons who commit suicide in this department are altogether strangers to the capital. We come, then, to this conclusion, that of the thousand individuals who are guilty of the crime of suicide, no less than five hundred and five take place in the department of the north; one hundred and sixty-eight occur in the southern division; sixty-five in the western; and fifty-two in the central; a distribution which shews that there is, if not the same proportion, certainly the same order, as the distribution of suicides in the five divisions in respect of the amount of population.
In the explanation which is appended to the table just alluded to, the author shews, that of the suicides committed in the department of the Seine, where they are most numerous, there appears to be one suicide for every 3,600 the inhabitants; whilst in the department of the Haute Soire, where the crime is less frequent, this proportion does not amount to more than one in 163,000 inhabitants.