Chapter XXII

Suicide

>>>>England is the paradise of the rich, the purgatory of the wise, and the
>>>>hell of the poor.
>>>>-- Theodore Parker

With life so precarious, and opportunity for the
happiness of life so remote, it is inevitable that life
shall be cheap and suicide common. So common
is it, tnat one cannot pick up a daily paper without
running across it; while an attempt-at-suicide case
in a police court excites no more interest than an
ordinary drunk, and is handled with the same
rapidity and unconcern.

I remember such a case in the Thames Police
Court. I pride myself that I have good eyes and
ears, and a fair working knowledge of men and
things; but I confess, as I stood in that courtroom,
that I was half-bewildered by the amazing despatch
with which drunks, disorderlies, vagrants, brawlers,
wife-beaters, thieves, fences, gamblers, and women
of the street went through the machine of justice.
The dock stood in the centre of the court (where
the light is best), and into it and out again stepped
men, women, and children, in a stream as steady as

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