SUICIDE METHODS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20477, 1 December 1934, Page 25 (Supplement)

SUICIDE METHODS.

The Spirit of Old and Modern Japan. LOYALTY AND HONOUR. QN CE again the Japanese passion for self-sacrifice has been illustrated, by the suicide of a rural police-inspec-tor, who, according to a cable, recently killed himself because of his sense of disgrace in having guided a Royal procession down a wrong street in his district. The usual wholesale resignations of Ministers and officials concerned are reported to have followed his act, as by modern custom, all hold themselves equally concerned in the disgrace. Even to-day such suicides are highly regarded in Japan. From very early times this method of atonement to the Throne was a much-valued privilege of the noble (“ daimyo ”) or warrior “ samurai ” classes, of Japanese society. The national method of suicide is “ hara-kiri,” a word meaning literally “ stomach-cutting.” Occasionaly this painful method is still practised by modern suicides. Originally permitted only to the noble classes, it has become to-day the national form of self-sacrifice. In the olden days “ hara-kiri ” was either obligatory or voluntary. An official or noble who had broken the law or been disloyal, usually received a message, accompanied by a jewelled dagger from the Emperor. This polite invitation to kill himself was invariably accepted by the victim, who carried out the ceremony with elaborate and prescribed ritual. Obligatory Suicide. Obligatory suicide was abolished in 1868, but for centuries beforehand the number of “ hara-kiri ” deaths, both obligatory and voluntary, amounted to about 1500 annually. If a mediaeval noble had, in his own idea, violated the warrior code, his dishonour was wiped out by voluntary “ hara-kiri.” Voluntary “ hara-kiri ” was thus normally practised by men rendered desperate by private misfor tune, or out of loyalty to a dead or murdered superior, or even as a protest against a fancied wrong. It is this idea which now survives and forms the motive for the many of the suicides which occur in modern Tapan. Thus, though it is a violation of the letter of the law of the land, it is very much in accord with the national spirit. Modern motives, indeed, are similar to those of mediaeval times. Suicides by petty officials who in the course of their duty make some trifling mistake of procedure when the Emperor is abroad are common. Such is the pre sent case of the country police-inspej tor. Such also is that of a station master of Meiji days, who killed himself because a train carrying the Emperor over-ran the station by a few yards, or of another one who committed

“ hara-kiri ” because the Royal train was delayed in his district lor an hour because of fouling the points. General Nogl’s Case. Cases of “ Patriots ” nowadays who kill themselves as a protest against a national policy with which they disagree also occur. At the time of the American Exclusion Bill one of these stabbed himself on the lawn of the American Embassy in Tokio, and a few years ago a fanatic pinned a patriotic protest to his own heart with a dagger in front of the Imperial Palace there because of some fancied national grievance. Loyalty to a dead superior—illustrated in mediaeval times by the story of the Forty-Nine Ronin, so dear to Japanese sentiments of fealty—v.as responsible for the ‘‘ hara kiri ” of General Nogi, captor of Port Arthur, just after the death of the Emperor Meiji in 1912.