Montreal suicides in the 1930s

Media don't run stories like this anymore largely because it is said to promote a very harmful phenomenon, so hopefully this won't put any weird ideas in your head. I don't know if the voluntary ban on suicide discussion is entirely useful though, perhaps some discussion could lead to prevention. Anyway this is typed from an old microfilm, a few lines were omitted due to visibility issues.

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February 4, 1933 Montreal Herald.

   Tragedy and grim humor in suicide -types of self destruction varied and weird -Herald reporter discovers in check up with morgue official s- man who sketched his own death –fear and worry believed major causes of suicide – many and varied are the rendez vous with death in this city.

– A man this week blew his head off with a dynamite cap. An inquiry at the local morgue revealed that this suicide was but one of a series extending over a long period in which people have chosen methods ranging from swift, speedy termination of their lives to elaborate, carefully worked out schemes. 

   Perhaps the most nonchalant case on record is that of a man three years ago who turned on the gas and at drawing cartoons about the whole business, while the poisoning atmosphere slowly arrested the moving pencil on the last drawing in which he presented himself thumbing his nose at Death.

   Another made sure of his end. He combined poisoning, a shot-gun and hanging all in one blow to end his troubles. One grim story after another lies hidden in the local morgue, one tragedy after another of life misspent, of disillusion, suffering, struggle and mental aberration leading to death.   

 Perhaps the most popular way out of the troubles of life morgue officials agree is through gas, whether it be illuminating gas, carbon monoxide or coal gas… suicides by carbon monoxide gases seems to have been passed with the ..coming of colder weather. 

   Drowning as gleaned from impressions of near suicides is considered ‘very easy’.’ The razor and penknife has been used to some extent through this method is usually reversed to crazed persons. –revolver out – the revolver seems to have lost its popularity.. recently there was such a case at the local morgue a 12 year old boy, ordered to stay within doors by his father one day as punishment for a minor fault when to the shed at the rear of his home and hung himself from one of the beams.

  

  Another similar case occurred about a year go when a young Finnish lad, aged 15 hung himself from a bed post because he had broke the handle of a small coffee machine the repair of which would not have cost more than a few dollars. Many suicides result from lover quarrels...occasionally one hears of a person committing a rather complicated suicide. 

   Such cases are not unusual some time ago a prominent young man in one of Montreal’s suburbs poisoned himself, shot himself with a rifle and was found hanging in a barn at the rear of his home and yet, he was not dead until the noose strangled him though each of the treatments would have been fatal in themselves… another case is recalled of a woman a short time ago who swallowed a large quantity of javel water and then hanged herself by a cord from a water pipe in her bathroom. Only once has the Montreal morgue received a suicide who in ending his own life wrote down his sensations while death was creeping upon him. 

  

   It was the case of a young man on Park Avenue some months ago who turned on the gas in his room. He sat at a table and wrote notes at intervals of one or two minutes. Such phrases as a “pleasant feeling,” "seem to be floating very tired” and “sleeping” and “it wont be long now,” were used by the writer to describe his exit from this life. The last note was but an unreadable scribble which trailed off into nothingness, he was found pen in his hand resting on the note.