The responsibility becomes too great, and he who has to bear it
is apt to be crushed beneath its weight. Every morning he reads his
paper with a sensation of nervous dread, fearing lest among the police
news he should find a brief account of the discovery of some corpse
which he can identify as that of an individual with whom he had
pleaded at his office on the yesterday and in vain.
On former occasions when I visited him, Colonel Unsworth used to show
me a small museum of poisons, knives, revolvers, etc., which he had
taken from those who proposed to use them to cut the Gordian knot of
life.
Now, however, he has but few of these dreadful relics. I asked him
what he had done with the rest. He answered that he had destroyed
them.
'The truth is,' he added, 'that after some years of this business I
can no longer bear to look at the horrid things; they get upon my
nerves.'
If I may venture to offer a word of advice to the Chiefs of the
Salvation Army, I would suggest that the very responsible position of
first Anti-Suicide Officer in London is not one that any man should be
asked to fill in perpetuity.
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