The multiplicity of instances which has occurred since I have been here is astonishing. Two that have happened very lately are remarkable for the peculiar circumstances which accompanied them.
The first was occasioned by a sudden and unaccountable fit of despair, which seized the son of one of the wealthiest and most respectable citizens of the republic. This young gentleman had, in appearance, every reason to be satisfied with his lot. He was handsome, and in the vigour of youths married to a woman of an excellent character, who had brought him a great fortune, and by whom he was the father of a fine child. In the midst of all these blessings, surrounded by every thing which could inspire a man with an attachment to life, he felt it insupportable, and without any obvious cause of chagrin, determined to destroy himself.
Having passed some hours with his mother, a most valuable woman, and with his wife and child, he left them in apparent good humour, went into another room, applied the muzzle of a musket to his forehead, thrust back the trigger with his toe, and blew out his brains, in the hearing of the unsuspecting company he had just quitted.
The second instance, is that of a blacksmith, who, taking the same fatal resolution, and not having any convenient instrument at hand, charged an old gun-barrel with a brace of bullets, and putting one end into the fire of his forge, tied a string to the handle of the bellows, by pulling of which he could make them play, while he was at a convenient distance. Kneeling down, he then placed his head near the mouth of the barrel, and moving the bellows by means of the string, they blew up the fire, he keeping his head with astonishing firmness, and horrible deliberation, in that position, till the farther end of the barrel was so heated as to kindle the powder, whose explosion instantly drove the bullets through his brains.
Though I know that this happened literally as I have related, yet there is something so extraordinary, and almost incredible, in the circumstances, that perhaps I should not have mentioned it, had it not been well attested, and known to the inhabitants of Geneva, and all the English who are at present here.
Why suicide is more frequent in Great Britain and Geneva than elsewhere, would be a matter of curious investigation. For it appears very extraordinary, that men should be most inclined to kill themselves in countries where the blessings of life are best secured. There must be some strong and peculiar cause for an effect so preposterous.
Before coming here, I was of opinion, that the frequency of suicide in England was occasioned in a great measure by the stormy and unequal climate, which, while it clouds the sky, throws also a gloom over the minds of the natives.—To this cause, foreigners generally add, that of the use of coal, instead of wood, for fuel.
I rested satisfied with some vague theory, built on these taken together:—But neither can account for the same effect at Geneva, where coal is not used, and where the climate is the same with that in Switzerland, Savoy, and the neighbouring parts of France, where instances of suicide are certainly much more rare.