FRENCH SUICIDES.

Northern Advocate, 6 October 1913, Page 3

FRENCH SUICIDES.

THIRTY EACH DAY

There is an average of thirty suicides a day in France, and the number is increasing every year, says the Paris correspondent of an English paper.

In 1910 there were 9819, an increase" of 11 per cent since 1901; or, to put it more dramatically still, between 1901 and 1910 a total of 100,000 persons committed suicide in France. Relatively to population there were tion of 33 per cent, while only 23 per habitants, which is three times what it was seventy years ago; and in certain departments, such as the Seine et Loir, this proportion is doubled.

Suicide of males is three times more common than that of females, being for 1910, 7476 as against 2343. Married men in France are much more liable to commit suicide than those unmarried, 44 per cent, of the total being of men living with wives. Bachelors come next, in the proportiotn of 33 per cent, while only 23 per cent of widows of men divorced became so desperate as to take their lives. ,

Married yiomen also head the list of suicides of their sex with 43 per cent, widows and those divorced come next with 29 per cent; spinsters are last with 28 per cent.

Spring and summer are the seasons when most suicides occur, and the rate goes down with the approach of winter.