Note 20 — THE PROBLEMS OF SUICIDE

Five or six years ago, in a paper that I read before the Literary Society of Washington, D. C., I suggested this explanation of the high suicide rate in June. At the conclusion of the reading, a young Italian student, who happened to be present as a guest, came to me and said: "If I did not know it to be impossible, I should think that your explanation of June suicides had been suggested by, if not copied from, a letter left by a dear friend of mine who killed himself in Genoa, two years ago, on a beautiful evening in June. You have expressed his thoughts almost in the words that he used."