3 JULY 1947, Page 20

SUICIDE AND INSANITY

SIR,—Janus objects to the practice of bringing in verdicts of " suicide while of unsound mind," but surely, so long as all persons convicted of attempted suicide are classed as criminal lunatics, such a finding is the only one which is legally possible Indeed, any other would make an unfair and illogical distinction between successful and unsuccessful suicides. Incidentally I believe that a person who commits a murder and then tries to kill himself is liable to be hanged for the murder. It would therefore seem (since lunatics are not liable for capital punishment) that murderers are the only suicides who are sane—according to the