phically, from Belgium; but the suicide rate of the former is 324
per million, while that of the latter is only 128 per million.

I am unable to offer even a conjectural solution of the problems
involved in the differences thus shown to exist between populations that
are ethnologically identical, or that stand at nearly the same level of
educational culture and economic well being.

_Germany's High Suicide Rates_

The extremely high suicide rate of the Germanic peoples long ago
attracted the attention of European sociologists, but, so far as I know,
it has never been satisfactorily explained. If it were limited to adults
it might possibly be attributed to economic causes, particularly to the
rapid development of manufacturing industry, which seems everywhere to
increase the suicidal tendency; but self-destruction in Germany is
almost as common among children as among grown people. Between 1883 and
1903 there were 1,125 suicides among the pupils of the public schools
in Prussia alone, and most of them were of boys and girls under fifteen
years of age. An investigation made by the ministry of public
instruction showed that this prevalence of suicide among children was
not due to the conditions of modern life in cities, inasmuch as the
proportion of cases was fully as large in places of the smallest size as
in crowded centers of population. It seemed to be due, rather, to an
inherent suicidal tendency in the race.

Racial characteristics, however, do not by any means account for the
extraordinary differences in suicide rates that we find among the
European peoples, as shown in the following table:[21]

EUROPEAN PEOPLES GROUPED RACIALLY

NUMBER OF SUICIDES PER MILLION INHABITANTS

I. SLAVS

In Dalmatia (about 1896) 14
European Russia (1900) 31
Bulgaria (about 1900) 118

II. SCANDINAVIANS

In Norway (1901-'05) 65
Sweden (1900-'04) 142
Denmark (1901-'05) 227

III. LATINS

In Spain (1893) 21
Portugal (1906) 23
Italy (1901-'05) 64
France (1900-'04) 227

IV. GERMANS

In Austria (1902) 173
Prussia (1902-'06) 201
Saxony (1902-06) 324
Bavaria (1902-'06) 141

V. ENGLISH

In Ireland (1906) 34
Scotland (1905) 65
England and Wales (1906) 100
Australasia (1903)