Suicide Hour

A Manhattan minister with a benevolent interest in suicides, Dr. Harry Marsh Warren, has itemized the precise day and hour most often chosen for voluntary death. It is 11:00 a.m., Tuesday. It took long investigations by the Save-a-Life League, which Dr. Warren founded in 1906 and since has headed, to determine this hour and to infer a reason for its choice. Said Dr. Warren last week, after a League meeting: "People see want ads on Sunday; look for the jobs and fail to get them on Monday; and on Tuesday decide to end it all."

Favorite current means of suicide is jumping from high places; 15 years ago and earlier, favorite and almost exclusive agencies were gas and pistols. This was George P. Lebrun's contribution to the League's symposium. Mr. Lebrun is chief clerk of New York City's medical examiner's office. His records show that 21,518 people have killed themselves wittingly in New York City the past 25 years. The year average before 1920 was 750. Last year the number was 1,478. Up to Oct. 1 this year it was 1,148.

His life-saving idea came to Dr. Warren before the 1907 panic, while he held a Baptist pastorate in Manhattan. He preached a sermon against suicides in which he cried: "I wish that all who be lieve that death is the only solution to their problems would give me a chance to prove them wrong." Next day a dozen appeared for proof. Next day more. Fortunately he had sufficient money to surrender his pastorate, raise his daughter and two sons, and devote himself entirely to his Save-a-Life League. Cases which a country rest might cure he takes to his 21-room home at Hastings-on-Hudson, north of Manhattan. Mail inquiries he refers to League contacts in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco. Very soon Chicago will have a formal agency, like Manhattan's tan's. At 64, Dr. Warren believes he has saved at least 25,000 lives.

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