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To discover the true cause, may, perhaps,
be no easy task. Gaming, the too
prevailing vice of the French, and the frequent
cause of self-destruction, is not the
vice o f the Genevese, and there is less external
appearance of misery in Geneva, than
in almost any other city of Europe. That
distress, either bodily or mental, real or
imaginary, is the inducement to suicide here
as elsewhere, cannot be doubted, though it
sometimes takes place from a mere tædium
vitoe, or weariness of life. I speak hesitatingly
on such a subject, but I feel inclined
to believe, that the prevailing.cause
of self-destruction at Geneva is pride. To
explain the reasons for entertaining this
opinion, it may first be necessary to mention
that the Sovereign People, the citizens
of Geneva, would consider it a degradation
to follow the common useful trades o f shoemakers,
tailors, or carpenters, or to engage
as domestic servants with their fellow-citizens.
The Germans, the Vaudois, and the
Savoyards, are the Helotes who perform
these offices. Watch-making may be practised
without degradation, and it used to
employ nearly one-fourth of the population,
women working at it as well as men ;
but the trade is now overstocked with workmen,
and is on the decline. Hence the
young men are obliged to emigrate, as
they cannot all be artists, watch-makers, or
professional men, and the number of marchands
and negocians is necessarily limited
in a city which is rather declining in population,
and does not admit of increase, as
there is no space for new houses within the
walls.
Where the pretensions of pride mount
high, and are associated with poverty, unaccompanied
by distinguished merit, severe
mortification will be the frequent result,
and this may lead to mental alienation and
suicide.
In democratic republics, there is also an
evil constantly in operation to goad and
irritate the amour propre of the great mass
o f the citizens, nor has Geneva escaped its
influence.
In a government where the citizens are
not distinguished by hereditary rank, it is
difficult, if not impossible, to prevent the
formation of an indefinite kind of aristocracy
arising from wealth, combined with
family antiquity ; and this is ever more
grating to the feelings of the inferior citi-
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