ese figures
do not occur.

Of course, it is suggested that many of those who drift into the
Anti-Suicide Bureau have no real intention of making away with
themselves, but that they come there only to see what they can get in
the way of money or other comfort. As regards money, the answer is
that, except very occasionally, the Army gives none, for the simple
reason that it has none to give. For the rest the fatal cases which
happen show that there is a grim purpose at work in the minds of many
of the applicants. But I repeat, let us halve the figures, let us even
quarter them, which, as Euclid remarked, is absurd, and even then what
are we to conclude?

Before proceeding with my comments upon this work I ought to state,
perhaps, that the Army has various branches of this Anti-Suicide
Crusade. Thus, it is at work in almost all our big cities, and also in
America, in Australia, and in Japan. The Japanese Bureau was opened
last year with very good results. This is the more remarkable in a
country where ancient tradition and immemorial custom hallow the
system of _hara-kiri_ in any case of trouble or disgrace.

Moreover, the idea is spreading, Count Tolstoy is said to have been
interested in it. Applications have been received from the Hague for
particulars of the Army methods in the matter. Similar work is being
carried out in Vienna, not by the Army, but on its lines. The Army has
been informed that if it will open an Anti-Suicide Bureau in Budapest,
office accommodation, etc., will be found for it. And so forth.

Colonel Unsworth who, until recently had charge of the Anti-Suicide
Bureau from its commencement, is of opinion that suicide is very much
on the increase, a statement that it would be difficult to dispute in
view of the number of cases recorded daily in the local Press. For
instance, I read one on this morning of writing, in a Norfolk paper,
where a farmer had blown out his brains, to all appearance because he
had a difference of opinion with his wife as to whether he should, or
should not, take on another farm.

Colonel Unsworth attributed this sad state of affairs to sundry
causes. The first of these was the intense and ever-increasing nervous
pressure of our time. The second, the spread of fatalism, The third,
the advance of materialistic ideas, and of the general disbelief in
the doctrine of future retribution. The fourth, a certain noticeable
return in such matters to the standard of Pagan nations, esp