The hundreds of Russian women who between 1877 and 1885 were exiled to eastern Siberia for political offenses had no shelter or protection whatever, and must necessarily have suffered more than the exiled men from the hardships and privations of banishment; and yet, I am quite sure that I understate the fact when I say that the number of suicides among the men was at least five times greater than it was among the women. The exiled men themselves admitted to me that when it came to the endurance of suffering against which no fight could be made and from which there was no escape, the women were greatly their superiors. The infrequency of self-destruction among women, as compared with that among men, seems to me to be due, not to their comparative immunity from suffering, but to three other causes, namely, first, a greater power of patient, passive endurance, when there is no fight to be made; second, a mind and heart that are more influenced by feelings and beliefs that may be called religious; and, third, a peculiar capacity for self-restraint and self-preservation, based on the maternal instinct, that is, on closer and more intimate relations with, stronger love for, and greater devotion to young children.
A study of the relation that suicide bears to occupation discloses some interesting and noteworthy facts. The first is that soldiers, both in Europe and in the United States, must be put in a class by themselves, for the reason that the suicide rate of army officers and men is so much higher than that of the populations to which they belong that they can hardly be included in the same category. In Prussia, for example, the proportion of military suicides to civilian suicides is 1½ to 1; in England 2½ to 1; in Italy 5 to 1; in Austria 10 to 1; and in Russia nearly 11 to 1. Even in the United States, the tendency of soldiers to kill themselves is 8½ times that of adult men in civil life.
This disproportionately high suicide rate in armies is not easy of explanation. In countries where military service is compulsory, and where inexperienced young men, torn suddenly from their families, are subjected to rigorous discipline in a strange and uncongenial environment, the suicidal impulse may be intensified by homesickness, loneliness, humiliation, and the monotony of camp or barrack life; but in our own country, where the army is filled by voluntary enlistment, and where the relations between officers and men are fairly sympathetic and cordial, there would seem to be fewer reasons for unhappiness and suffering than in the military service of Italy, Austria, or Russia. The American soldier is generally well taken care of and well treated; and while his life, in time of peace, is not exciting, it is easier and less monotonous than that of a factory operative, and it is hard to understand why he should be abnormally disposed to self-destruction. His suicidal tendency, however, is reduced by war, just as that of the civil population is, and for the same reasons.
Professional Classes Furnish Most Suicides
Statistics of self-destruction are not yet accurate and detailed enough to enable us to determine the relation that suicide bears to business employment; but it may be said, in a general way, that the occupations in which the suicide rate is lowest are those that involve rough manual labor out of doors and employ men of comparatively little educational culture, such as miners, quarrymen, shipwrights, fishermen, gardeners, bricklayers, and masons. Next come farmers, shopkeepers, and town artisans. And at the head of the list, with the highest suicide rate of all, are physicians, journalists, teachers, and lawyers. The tendency of these professional classes to commit suicide is from one and a half to three times as great as that of the population generally.
Clergymen, however, who also constitute an educated professional class, have a suicide rate which is only half that of the population as a whole, and this is undoubtedly due to the restraining influence of religion, which is much stronger in clergymen than in laymen. The relation of suicide to religion raises a number of curious and interesting questions, but, unfortunately, the religious factor is so involved with other factors in the complicated problem of self-destruction that it is almost impossible to isolate it so as to study it alone. For example, the suicide rate of Protestant Christians in the northern part of Ireland is twice that of Roman Catholics in the southern part; but here education comes in as a complication: the Protestants are generally better educated than the Catholics, and their higher suicide rate may be due to their education and not to the form of their religion. In Europe generally, the tendency to suicide is much greater among both Protestants and Catholics than among Jews; but here education, race, and economic condition all come in as complicating factors, so that it is impossible to credit the Jewish faith alone with the lower rate. In view, however, of the fact that the suicide rate of the Protestant cantons in Switzerland is nearly four times that of the Catholic cantons, it seems probable that Catholicism, as a form of religious belief, does restrain the suicidal impulse. The efficient cause may be the Catholic practice of confessing to priests, which probably gives much encouragement and consolation to unhappy but devout believers, and thus induces many of them to struggle on in spite of misfortune and depression.
The Salvation Army, in attempting to lessen self-destruction by opening "anti-suicide bureaus" in large cities, and by inviting persons who are contemplating suicide to visit these bureaus and talk over their troubles, is virtually introducing a system of confession which, so far as this particular evil is concerned, resembles that of the Catholic Church.
In view, however, of the conflicting nature of the evidence, and the extreme difficulty of disentangling religious factors from other important factors, I doubt the possibility of drawing any trustworthy conclusions with regard to the dependence of suicide upon religious belief. It may be said, as a matter of record, that the tendency to self-destruction is greatest among Protestant Christians, next largest among Roman Catholics and Orthodox Greeks, and lowest among Mohammedans and Jews; but the differences are not certainly due to religion.
The dependence of suicide upon nationality and race presents a number of problems of great interest, but of extraordinary difficulty and complexity. I can state a few of these problems, but I cannot solve any of them.
Among the highest suicide rates in Europe are those of Saxony and Denmark, and among the lowest those of Italy, Portugal, and Spain. You may perhaps conclude, from this, that the tendency to self-destruction is much greater among the Slavs and Scandinavians of the north than it is among the Latin peoples of the south, and that the differences are due to latitude or race; but your specious generalization is shattered when you discover that the suicide rates of Norway and Russia, both northern countries inhabited by Scandinavians and Slavs, are almost as low as those of Italy, Portugal, and Spain, all southern countries inhabited by Latins.