A study of American statistics brings us to almost exactly the same result. In September, 1895, Dr. Forbes Winslow, of New York, read a paper before the medico-legal congress which was then in session in that city upon the subject of "Suicide as a Mental Epidemic." The statistics which he submitted showed that in the United States, as in Europe, suicide reaches its maximum in June and falls to its minimum in December. The average annual number of American suicides in June is 336 and in December 217. If we divide the year into halves and compare the figures of the semi-annual periods with those of Russia, the correspondence is almost startling.

Notwithstanding the immense difference between the population of Russia and that of the United States, in environment, in education, in religion, in inherited character, in temperament, and in civilization generally, the mysterious law that controls the seasonal distribution of suicides operates in America exactly as it operates in the great empire of the Slavs. In Russia, out of every thousand suicides, the number who kill themselves in the fall-and-winter half of the year is precisely 400; in America it is 386. In Russia, the proportion per thousand in the spring-and-summer half of the year is 600; in America it is 614. There is a slightly greater tendency to spring-and-summer suicide in the United States than in Russia, but the variation is only a little more than one per cent., and taking into consideration the great difference between the oppressed and ignorant peasants of Russia, and the free, well-educated citizens of our own country, the practical identity of their seasonal suicide rates seems to me a most extraordinary social and psychological fact.

This, however, is by no means a complete statement of the problem involved in the seasonal distribution of suicides. Spring and summer are the suicide seasons, not only among the closely related nationalities of Europe and the United States, but among the ethnologically alien peoples of the Far East. The reports of the Statistical Bureau of Japan show that between 1899 and 1903 the average annual number of suicides was 8,840. They were distributed through the year as follows: winter 1,711, spring 2,475, summer 2,703, fall 1,951. If we divide the year into halves, we find that 59 per cent. of the Japanese suicides occur in the spring and summer months and only 41 per cent. in the months of fall and winter. This corresponds almost exactly with the annual distribution of suicides in the United States, in Russia, and in Europe as a whole. The seasonal percentages may be shown in tabular form as follows:[18]

United
StatesRussiaEuropeJapan
per cent.per cent.per cent.per cent.
Spring and summer61605959
Fall and winter39404141

It thus appears that the tendency of mankind to commit suicide in spring and summer, rather than in fall and winter, is quite as strongly marked in Japan as it is in Europe and America. Despite all differences of character and environment, the suicidal impulses of Yankee, muzhik, and coolie are governed by the same law.

Suicide Weather

The evidence above set forth, and much more for which I cannot here find space, seems conclusively to establish the fact that, throughout the civilized world, the pleasantest seasons of the year are most conducive to suicide. The question then arises, Does this rule hold good if applied to the pleasantest days of the pleasantest seasons? In other words, is the tendency to suicide greater on clear, dry, and sunny days in June than on dark, cloudy, and rainy days in June? Professor Edwin G. Dexter, of the University of Illinois, published in the Popular Science Monthly, in April, 1901, a long and interesting paper entitled "Suicide and the Weather," in which he gave the result of a comparison between the police records of 1,962 cases of suicide in the city of New York and the records of the New York Weather Bureau for all the days on which these suicides occurred. His comparisons and computations, which seem to have been made with great thoroughness and care, show not only that the tendency to suicide is greatest in the spring and summer months, but that it is most marked on the clearest, sunniest, and pleasantest days of those months. To state his conclusions in his own words: "The clear, dry days show the greatest number of suicides, and the wet, partly cloudy days the least; and with differences too great to be attributed

to accident or chance. In fact, there are thirty-one per cent. more suicides on dry than on wet days, and twenty-one per cent. more on clear days than on days that are partly cloudy."

It thus appears that, as a rule, the tendency to suicide, throughout the civilized world, is greatest in the pleasantest seasons of the year; that it is everywhere greatest in the pleasantest month of the pleasantest season; and that in New York City it is greatest on the clearest and sunniest days of the pleasantest month. From the point of view of science, therefore, it is perfectly reasonable and absolutely accurate to say on a beautiful, sunny day in early June, "This is regular suicide weather."

Now, what is the explanation of this world-wide tendency to self-destruction in the seasons, months, and days when life would seem to be best worth living? The cause, whatever it be, can have no connection with race, religion, history, political status, or geographical location, because it acts uniformly among peoples as widely different, in all these respects, as the Russians, the Italians, the Americans, and the Japanese. It is evidently a cosmic cause, but what is its nature?