which, no doubt, he was before many mo ments had elapsed, utterly consumed. The natural question is—why did he do it? Prob ably he could not tell the reason himself if he were alive. A pleasanter way of quitting the world was that adopted by a Parisian grisette, who filled her small bedroom with flowers, and when her mother went to call her in the morning she found her dead. The young creature understood vegetable phy siology and chemistry sufficiently to be able to adapt them to fatal ends. At Plymouth, a man .named Jolly tied his feet together, and then threw himself into the water, having previously announced his intention of committing suicide in that par ticular way. November is generally be lieved to be the month of suicides. It is cer tainly a melancholy month. Professor Mer rill, who has made a special study of the subject, says it is not true that suicide is more frequent "in damp, cloudy and dark weather, such as helps the development of melancholy passions." August is the month in which the greatest number of suicides lake place in Paris, one hundred and six occurring in that month, as against forty-one in Febru ary, the slackest month. Last year, July was the suicidal month in Paris. In this country the "flowery month'7 of June is the favorite time. Suicide is so common in London that it does not excite public feeling; there is so much misery in a great metropolis that it is only wonderful that human beings can en dure it at all. Some men and women plunge into the river in order to draw attention to the condition of their families. "Policeman," said a respectably-dressed man, "why did you not let me do it? I have a wife and eight children. I went home last night and found my wife fainting at her needlework, and the children crying for bread. I could see nothing in front of me but death." To his wife he had written: "My dear little wife, we must part. But
where? At the workhouse gate? No little darling, 'till death us do part' was the prom ise we made, and death is the kindest and best." Fortunately he was seized before dis appearing for the last time, and publicity given to the case by the newspapers resulted in upwards of five hundred dollars being sent to the Mansion House for the benefit of the man's wife, and family. "Nature intended me to be a man; fate made me a grocer/' were the words written on a piece of paper left by a young French man, who blew out his brains with a pistol. That young man had mistaken his calling, but it would be a serious thing for society if all grocers were to think and act in like manner. A spice of humor attaches to the valedictory address of a Pans cabman who strangled himself. He wrote: "I leave this world because it pleases me to do so. I have had enough of driving people about in this world. I am going to see if, in the other world, people drive differently. All I ask is that no fuss may be made about me." And with the view of insuring that the letter should not go astray, he wrote upon the en velope, "To Anyone." "I am no longer able to support my par ents," was the reason assigned by an octo genarian in Buda-Pesth for attempting to commit suicide. This man's name was Janos Meryessi. He had for the last few years been a beggar, and was eighty-four years old. His father and mother were said to be aged one hundred and fifteen and one hundred and ten respectively. Meryessi was rescued by an Hungarian member of Parliament, as he was about to jump into the Danube off the Suspension Bridge. His story was investi gated by the police and declared to be true. For a mother, half mad or wholly mad with grief or misery, to murder her children and then kill herself, is not an event without pre cedent. But for a father, who appeared to his neighbors, to his intimates, and to the doctor who examined his brain after death,
