Suicides Anonymous

The small, grey-haired man stood on the Thames embankment and stared down at the sliding water, while the city whined and rumbled around him. He had failed at a good job, felt that his whole life was destroyed. While trying to work up the courage to jump, he walked on. Suddenly, he saw the words SALVATION ARMY painted over a doorway. Two minutes later he was sitting in a tiny office talking to a silver-haired Salvation Army brigadier named Herbert Langdon, who seemed to understand just how he felt. They talked for three hours, and that night the would-be suicide slept there. Last week, with a new job in another city, he celebrated the first anniversary of his reclaimed life, playing the euphonium in an army band.

At the army's East End hostel, Brigadier Langdon celebrated the same anniversary by writing the words "Case successful" on another dossier--of a partner in a bankrupt decorating firm who had cashed a bad check to get clothes for his children, then had come up to London to kill himself (among other things, the Salvation Army made good the check).

To Herbert Langdon, man's urge to self-destruction is an old story. During the past six years, as head of the Salvation Army's Anti-Suicide Bureau in London, he and his colleagues have helped thousands who have tried or contemplated suicide. The bureau, the army's only one of its kind, was set up in 1907 by General William Booth himself; within six years, more than 5,000 people had called at the bureau for help. Brigadier Langdon's is the only agency in Britain set up specifically to handle the problem of suicide (and accepts no women, turns them over to the army's department of Women's Social Work. Reason: women usually have friends and relatives who take over the task of rehabilitation and are not in need of so much special attention).

The police and magistrates' courts turn over cases to the Anti-Suicide Bureau as often as possible, without bringing them to court, though an attempt at suicide is a criminal offense in Britain. During his six years at the bureau, 57-year-old Brigadier Langdon has kept careful records (no accurate records were kept before him). Of the cases referred to him, 38.7% took drugs, 21.6% cut their throats or wrists. 20.6% turned on the gas, 12.6% attempted drowning, 3.5% staged "accidents," like stepping in front of a bus. Very few tried to shoot themselves ("Shooting just isn't done in this country. We're not that kind of people."). The Salvation Army gives would-be suicides financial and, above all, spiritual help. Says Langdon: "No two cases are alike except they have one thing in common: none of them have a strong faith in Christianty. We try to direct them into a religious life. The development of religious belief is our primary object. But you can't start talking religion if he's got something else on his mind."

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