Despondency……….4,134
Unknown……………. 721
Insanity………………1,826
Ill health……………. 411
Domestic infelicity. 1,525
Liquor……………….. 375
Disappointment in Business losses…….. 32
love………………… 958
Poison was the most common agency of destruction, 4,732 persons having taken that route into the hereafter. Besides these, 2,861 shot themselves, 1,022 used the rope, 868 drowned themselves, 706 cut their throats, 45 threw themselves in front of trains, and 44 out of windows or from roofs; 23 burned themselves to death, 28 stabbed themselves, 10 blew themselves up with dynamite, and 3 starved themselves.
Chapters might be written and records and statistics produced to show that self-murder (suicide) has its origin and cause in sexual weakness and sexual depravity.
The insane, among us today, are increasing three times as fast as our population. In England, one out of every 285 is insane. In the state of New York there are 26,000 in the insane asylums. The state of Wisconsin contains three thousand epileptics. It is estimated that there are a million of various classes of men who are defective mentally in this country. Self-defilement lowers the physical capabilities and also lowers the mental tone of man or woman.
The sensualist and masturbator has a weakened will and mind; they are incapable of making a final decision because they cannot reason clearly. They become a victim and prey to their impulses. All their passions and thoughts are equally abnormal and excitable owing to the fact that their power of self- control has been lost.
The Holy Scriptures declare that the curse cause- less shall not come.
“ As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.”— Proverbs 26:2.
The young men and women who have polluted and tainted their souls by self-defilement are a far greater menace to this country’s welfare than tainted money or white slavery, of which we have heard so much of late.
The leading authorities on this subject in this country consider self-defilement and sensualism quite as formidable a social plague as another venereal disease known as syphilis, and estimate that the number of suicides arising, directly or indirectly, from these baneful habits will annually equal the combined death rate from typhoid fever, pneumonia and tuberculosis.
That suicide is steadily and surely on the increase in this country will be shown by a study of the following table, which is correct. This table gives the number of suicides each year dating back to the year of 1899:
1899…………………..5,340
1903………………….. 8,597
1900………………….. 6,755
1904………………….. 9,240
1901…………………..7,245
1905…………………..10,342
1902………………….. 8,291