The changes of rate produced by Race mingling can be studied, not only in countries where the process has been going on for centuries, but also in respect to recent movements of men. When Europeans emigrate, they are found to carry with them to their new home their peculiarities in regard to Suicide: the several races of Germans have a high rate at home, and on examination of the records of a country peopled by emigration, of New York, for instance, we find that the Germans there kill themselves more often than the Anglo-Saxon element, which has in its home a low suicide rate. During the year 1883, in New York there were 151 cases, of these no less than 70 were Germans; now the proportion of Germans in New York is certainly not seven-fifteenths of the population.
The Negro races in their original homes shew an avoidance of voluntary death, and they carry this characteristic with them into other lands: in the United States the relative proportion between the number of suicides, in coloured and white men, is about one to eighty.
The rate of suicide observable in a race is seen to be curiously associated with stature; the original inhabitants of Germany were tall and fair; these had originally a high rate, and descendants of this race shew the same peculiarity to-day. In proportion as these fair tall Germans infiltrate another country, just as certainly does the suicidal total grow. Morselli states that in Italy the rate increases from south to north, gradually, in proportion as the stature also increases, until the German states are reached. There is, however, another tall fair race, who have a low rate, the Slavonic; on the eastern borders of Hungary where these immigrate, the Hungarian rates are lowered.
In Europe the highest proportion of suicide is shewn by the Germanic races, and the two stocks, German and Scandinavian, divide the supremacy for the maximum rate.
The ne plus ultra of German purity in race is found in Saxony, and this kingdom has the largest suicide ratio of any country.
The height of Scandinavian purity in race is found in Denmark, and there also the ratio is very large, enormous, in fact: in Norway the rate was for very long also extreme, but the great severity of recent laws with respect to offences and to drunkenness have made an almost incredible reduction in the amount of suicide.
Our British population is of too mixed a blood to enable statistics to show much of value; but the ratio is much smaller in the Anglo-Saxon than in the German.
The Celtic races avoid suicide, as is seen by the low rates in Ireland and Wales.
The races of Slavonic origin show the lowest rates, with those of Asiatic Turanian origin, the Magyars, Finns, and Lapps.