ANTI-SUICIDE BUREAU

Evening Star, Issue 18138, 30 November 1922, Page 1

ANTI-SUICIDE BUREAU

HOPE FOR THE HOPELESS. "Abandon hopelessness all ye who outer here” ought to bo inscribed over Dio doors of a building in tho Whitechapel '•road Drat at first sight might be.mistaken for a shop. It is London’s Anti-suicide Bureau, where Brigadier Chapman, of the Salvation Army, with a small stall of trained social workers, copes with the despairing and the desperate who fall in the ’bajttle of life. Many people -who attempt self-destruc-tion arc no longer dragged into Die publicity of Police Courts, but arc handed over to tho bureau, of whoso “ silent, secret, and saving work ’’ London hoots IRUo or noDrmg. It is tho bureau’s function to find 'friends for the friendless, help for the helpless, and jobs for Die workkss. Stockbrokers, clergymen, actors, schoolmasters, tradesmen, mid artisans arc all represented in Dio dossiers, tho confidences set out in which arc so well guarded. Hardly a day passes without a telephone call from one police station or another for an anti-suicide officer.

It is recorded that Dior© were 1,100 ■’oaaM in the bureau's first year', but Die work cannot bo measured by statistics, and not much stress is laid on figures. "Wo are ’constantly dealing with moa who have attempted to take their lives: because of their failure to obtain work,” Brigadier Chapman stated. “ I have _ a •case 'before me now of an ox-colonial! soldier with a large family who pawned nearly all ho possessed. He said ho could not stay at homo and oat, Iris children's food, and, pcv/ccUy desperate, lie went off, as lie said, ‘to do himself in.' We have pulled him round, got him some work, nndi I am ju.st going 1 to get his tools out of pawn. "By contrast., l-iiere was luo case ol a wcalDiy man connected wrDi Die etock market who wa» worried about Ins shares, and attempted Jus life. lor a long tune he would ted us notJmig, But at last wo discovered a relative ol his who kept a farm, and we arranged o, country holiday for him. Meantime a financial expert looked aster Ins eliOJCs, and when alio would-bo suicide returned Ins affairs were in «. sound position. I hen. continued tho brigadier, there was a North of England man who wanted to got away from everybody and everything. 1 and suddenly left Ins ouiuicso and onme to London to kill hunself. We* gat him Into a hostel, and he is now back wuh Jus family with a new outlook. Brigadier Chapman gate us another illustration of a tradesman who, finding tic had not funds enough to consult a certain specialist in London, who he believed could cure him. put his head in £i> gas oven. Ho was saved just m .time, ih© facts were brought to the notice of th© specialist he had mentioned, who. having verified them, gave hie services free. Relapses, at is interesting to learn, are rare. “Out of tho thousands of oases wo have handled since tho work wcis first \ogun in 1908, said Bragadier Chapman. " 1 have beard oi onlv three men who after wards took their Jives. When a man begins to talk of suicide lie is generally ill, is Brigadier Gliapmtui’s contention, and such threats should iliot ho disregarded. Very often such men are liable to act on a sudden impulse, and a very trifling’incident will sometimes turn tho seal©.