ecially of
ancient Rome, where it was held that if things went wrong and life
became valueless, or even uninteresting, to bring it to an end was in
no sense shameful but praiseworthy. In illustration of this point, he
quoted a remark said to have been made by a magistrate not long ago,
to the effect that in certain conditions a man was not to be blamed
for taking his own life.

His fifth reason was that circumstances arise in which some people
convince themselves that their deaths would benefit their families.
Thus, insurances may fall in, for, after one or two premiums have been
paid, many offices take the risk of suicide. Or they may know that
when they are gone, wealthy relatives will take care of their
children, who will thus be happier and better off than these are while
they, the fathers, live. Wrong as it may be, this, indeed, is an
attitude with which it is difficult not to feel a certain sympathy.
After all, we are told that there is no greater love than that of a
man who lays down his life for his friend, though there ran be no
doubt that the saying was not intended to include this kind of laying
down of life.

Colonel Unsworth's sixth cause was the increasing atrophy of the
public conscience. He stated that suicide is rarely preached against
from the pulpit, as drunkenness is for instance. Further, a jury can
seldom be induced to bring in a verdict of _felo-de-se._ Even where
the victim was obviously and, perhaps painfully sane, his act is put
down to temporary insanity.

Other causes are drink, hereditary disposition, madness in all its
protean shapes; incurable disease, unwillingness to face the
consequences of sin or folly; the passion of sexual love, which is
sometimes so mighty as to amount to madness; the effects of utter
grief such as result from the loss of those far more beloved than
self, of which an instance is at hand in the case of the Officer in
charge of the Shelter at Great Peter Street, Westminster, mentioned
earlier in this book, who, it may be remembered, tried to kill himself
after the death of his wife and child; and lastly, where women are
concerned, terror and shame at the prospect of giving birth to a
child, whose appearance in the world is not sanctioned by law or
custom.

Suicide among women is, however, comparatively rare, a fact which
suggests either that the causes which produce it press on or affect
them less, or that in this particular, their minds are better balanced
tha