Man no longer follows instinct with the old natural fidelity.He has developed into a reasoning creature, and can intellectually cling to life or discard life just as life happens to promise great pleasure or pain.I dare to assert that Ellen Hughes Hunt, defrauded and bilked of all the joys of life which fifty-two years' service in the world had earned, with nothing but the horrors of the workhouse before her, was very rational and level-headed when she elected to jump into the canal.And I dare to assert, further, that the jury had done a wiser thing to bring in a verdict charging society with temporary insanity for allowing Ellen Hughes Hunt to be defrauded and bilked of all the joys of life which fifty-two years' service in the world had earned.
Temporary insanity! Oh, these cursed phrases, these lies of language, under which people with meat in their bellies and whole shirts on their backs shelter themselves, and evade the responsibility of their brothers and sisters, empty of belly and without whole shirts on their backs.
From one issue of the Observer, an East End paper, I quote the following commonplace events:
A ship's fireman, named Johnny King, was charged with attempting to commit suicide.On Wednesday defendant went to Bow Police Station and stated that he had swallowed a quantity of phosphor paste, as he was hard up and unable to obtain work.King was taken inside and an emetic administered, when he vomited up a quantity of the poison.
Defendant now said he was very sorry.Although he had sixteen years'
good character, he was unable to obtain work of any kind.Mr.
Dickinson had defendant put back for the court missionary to see him.
Timothy Warner, thirty-two, was remanded for a similar offence.He jumped off Limehouse Pier, and when rescued, said, 'I intended to do it.'
A decent-looking young woman, named Ellen Gray, was remanded on a charge of attempting to commit suicide.About half-past eight on Sunday morning Constable 834 K found defendant lying in a doorway in Benworth Street, and she was in a very drowsy condition.She was holding an empty bottle in one hand, and stated that some two or three hours previously she had swallowed a quantity of laudanum.As she was evidently very ill, the divisional surgeon was sent for, and having administered some coffee, ordered that she was to be kept awake.When defendant was charged, she stated that the reason why she attempted to take her life was she had neither home nor friends.
I do not say that all people who commit suicide are sane, no more than I say that all people who do not commit suicide are sane.
Insecurity of food and shelter, by the way, is a great cause of insanity among the living.Costermongers, hawkers, and pedlars, a class of workers who live from hand to mouth more than those of any other class, form the highest percentage of those in the lunatic asylums.Among the males each year, 26.9 per 10,000 go insane, and among the women, 36.9.On the other hand, of soldiers, who are at least sure of food and shelter, 13 per 10,000 go insane; and of farmers and graziers, only 5.1.So a coster is twice as likely to lose his reason as a soldier, and five times as likely as a farmer.
