ase; but when I compared it with suicides that came to my
knowledge later, it seemed quite simple and natural. I have
well-authenticated cases in which men or women have committed suicide by
hanging themselves, or taking poison, in the tops of high trees; by
throwing themselves upon swiftly revolving circular saws; by exploding
dynamite in their mouths; by thrusting red-hot pokers down their
throats; by hugging red-hot stoves; by stripping themselves naked and
allowing themselves to freeze to death on winter snow-drifts out of
doors, or on piles of ice in refrigerator-cars; by lacerating their
throats on barbed-wire fences; by drowning themselves head downward in
barrels; by suffocating themselves head downward in chimneys; by diving
into white-hot coke-ovens; by throwing themselves into craters of
volcanoes; by shooting themselves with ingenious combinations of a rifle
with a sewing-machine; by strangling themselves with their hair; by
swallowing poisonous spiders; by piercing their hearts with corkscrews
and darning-needles; by cutting their throats with hand-saws and
sheep-shears; by hanging themselves with grape vines; by swallowing
strips of under-clothing and buckles of suspenders; by forcing teams of
horses to tear their heads off; by drowning themselves in vats of soft
soap; by plunging into retorts of molten glass; by jumping into
slaughter-house tanks of blood; by decapitation with home-made
guillotines; and by self-crucifixion.

Of course, persons who resort to such methods as these are, in most
cases, mentally unsound. A man who shoots, hangs, poisons, or drowns
himself may be sane; but the man who crucifies himself, buries himself
alive, cuts his throat on a barbed-wire fence, or climbs into the top of
a tree to take poison, is evidently on the border-line of insanity, even
if he be not a recognized lunatic.

The most prevalent methods of suicide in Europe are, first, hanging,
second, drowning. In the United States they are, first, poisoning,
second, shooting. About three fourths of all the persons who commit
suicide in the United States use pistol or poison. The difference
between European and American methods is probably due to the fact that
on the other side of the Atlantic drugs and fire-arms are not so easily
obtainable as they are here, and Europeans therefore resort to water and
the rope as the best and surest means accessible. Police restrictions
and regulations make it almost impossible for a Russ