Tunnel of Death in the London Underground
This is something directly from a Robert W Chambers horror story starring the King in Yellow, penned in the Victorian Era. He predicted the suicide booth.
In the following winter began that agitation for the repeal of the laws prohibiting suicide which bore its final fruit in the month of April, 1920, when the first Government Lethal Chamber was opened on Washington Square.
The inauguration ceremonies were in progress as I crossed University Place and entered the square.
The whole block was enclosed by a gilded iron railing, and converted into a lovely garden with lawns, flowers and fountains. In the centre of the garden stood a small, white building, severely classical in architecture, and surrounded by thickets of flowers. Six Ionic columns supported the roof, and the single door was of bronze. A splendid marble group of the “Fates” stood before the door.
The Governor was finishing his reply to the short speech of the Surgeon-General. I heard him say:
“The laws prohibiting suicide and providing punishment for any attempt at self-destruction have been repealed. The Government has seen fit to acknowledge the right of man to end an existence which may have become intolerable to him, through physical suffering or mental despair. It is believed that the community will be benefited by the removal of such people from their midst. Since the passage of this law, the number of suicides in the United States has not increased.
“Now the Government has determined to establish a Lethal Chamber in every city, town and village in the country, it remains to be seen whether or not that class of human creatures from whose desponding ranks new victims of self-destruction fall daily will accept the relief thus provided.”
He paused, and turned to the white Lethal Chamber. The silence in the street was absolute.
“There a painless death awaits him who can no longer bear the sorrows of this life. If death is welcome let him seek it there.”
—Robert W Chambers ‘The Repairer of Reputations’ (1895)
Pagan Romans or Samurai might commit suicide to avoid shame on their name, or their families’ , as part of the warrior ethos of men who live for pride. Cato of Utica or Socrates the philosopher might commit suicide rather than commit an act of cowardice, surrender, or show a lack of virtue.
But Satanists urge men to suicide in order to destroy the image of God in man, and condemn the souls of the sorrowful, the weary, and the confused to eternal hellfire.
They hate you. The corridor in the underground here is paved with adverts urging your self destruction.
No graver insult can be offered to creation than the attempt to obliterate it by destroying yourself. A man who kills himself kills the world and wounds his loved ones as deeply as they can be wounded.
There is no worse sin. The spirit of suicide is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, against life itself, against mankind, against all virtue, all reason, all goodness.
You are given a choice between life and death, blessing and cursing, salvation and damnation.
Choose life, and live.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
