Suicides Down

Every day a slim, grey agent of the Recording Angel scans all the newspapers which reach his Philadelphia office, meticulously snips out every item about every suicide. Between times Dr. Frederick Ludwig Hoffman, University of Pennsylvania statistician, writes to health officials and registrars of principal U. S. cities, requesting every iota of news about suicides. In this fashion he accumulates one of the most reliable records on earth concerning that army of unhappy souls who would dissipate their troubles in death.

Last week Dr. Hoffman completed and published in Spectator, insurance agents' journal, his study of 1934's recruits to that army. Data from 170 U. S. cities demonstrated that the tendency toward suicide is receding throughout the land. The 1934 rate was 16.8 suicides per 100,000 of population. The 1933 rate was 18.8. In 1933, 19,993 people killed themselves in the entire country. In 1934, Dr. Hoffman estimates 18,000 suicides.

Why Massillon, Ohio had the lowest rate (3.3) last year, why Concord, N.H. had the highest (41.4), Dr. Hoffman has no idea. Shooting continues to be the most popular U. S. method of self-destruction (38.4%). About half as popular are hanging, poisons, gas. Not popular are drowning, slashing or stabbing, jumping from high places. However, ''high places seem to have peculiar fascinations for suicides, and, broadly speaking, the frequency of such suicides is increasing." A new suicide tendency which disconcerts Dr. Hoffman is "the apparent increase in the number of suicides following murder."

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