WORLD-WEARY AT SIXTEEN.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 31 October 1928, Page 11

WORLD-WEARY AT SIXTEEN.

GIRL .COMMITS SUICIDE. OTHER INSTANCES RECALLED. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph Copyright.) (Australian Press Association.) Received 2.30 p.m. to-Say. LONDON, Oct. 30. The Westminster coroner, commenting on the death of a sixteen-year-old office girl, who jumped from the fifth floor window in a fit of pique because she had been mildly rebuked, said: “A wave of juvenile suicide is sweeping London. World-weary at sixteen is amazing. Too many young people seem to hold life lightly. ’ ’ He recalled that a girl committed suicide because she had to wear her mother’s blaek hat at a funeral. A wealthy young man had 'cut himself while 'shaving and in a fit of annoyance jumped from a window. A young man with his hands in bis pockets jumped into the Thames without reason. < ‘ Weariness before the age <of discretion seems common in theorising generation, ’ ’ he added. The coroner’s remarks prompted people to give their views. Mr Eldon Moore, editor of the “Enginics Review,” says: “Put bluntly, science is keeping! .alive nowadays the babies who otherwise would not survive. So called world-weary boys and girls belong : to that category.” Dame Mary Seharlied, a surgeon, said that the position was largely accountable by the young people taking up responsibilities earlier in life than thev used to.

Mr Bernard Hollander, a mental specialist, .states that suicide whims can seize the strongest minded, who later grow healthy citizens. The unsound mind verdict is often a fiction to soothe the relatives. ' • -