de seasons, not only among the closely related nationalities of
Europe and the United States, but among the ethnologically alien peoples
of the Far East. The reports of the Statistical Bureau of Japan show
that between 1899 and 1903 the average annual number of suicides was
8,840. They were distributed through the year as follows: winter 1,711,
spring 2,475, summer 2,703, fall 1,951. If we divide the year into
halves, we find that 59 per cent. of the Japanese suicides occur in the
spring and summer months and only 41 per cent. in the months of fall and
winter. This corresponds almost exactly with the annual distribution of
suicides in the United States, in Russia, and in Europe as a whole. The
seasonal percentages may be shown in tabular form as follows:[18]

United
States Russia Europe Japan
per cent. per cent. per cent. per cent.
Spring and summer 61 60 59 59
Fall and winter 39 40 41 41

It thus appears that the tendency of mankind to commit suicide in spring
and summer, rather than in fall and winter, is quite as strongly marked
in Japan as it is in Europe and America. Despite all differences of
character and environment, the suicidal impulses of Yankee, muzhik, and
coolie are governed by the same law.

_Suicide Weather_

The evidence above set forth, and much more for which I cannot here find
space, seems conclusively to establish the fact that, throughout the
civilized world, the pleasantest seasons of the year are most conducive
to suicide. The question then arises, Does this rule hold good if
applied to the pleasantest days of the pleasantest seasons? In other
words, is the tendency to suicide greater on clear, dry, and sunny days
in June than on dark, cloudy, and rainy days in June? Professor Edwin G.
Dexter, of the University of Illinois, published in the _Popular Science
Monthly_, in April, 1901, a long and interesting paper entitled "Suicide
and the Weather," in which he gave the result of a comparison between
the police records of 1,962 cases of suicide in the city of New York and
the records of the New York Weather Bureau for all the days on which
these suicides occurred. His comparisons and computations, which seem to
have been made with great thoroughness and care, show not only that the
tendency to suicide is greatest in the spring and summer months,