Notwithstanding the immense difference between the population of Russia and that of the United States, in environment, in education, in religion, in inherited character, in temperament, and in civilization generally, the mysterious law that controls the seasonal distribution of suicides operates in America exactly as it operates in the great empire of the Slavs. In Russia, out of every thousand suicides, the number who kill themselves in the fall-and-winter half of the year is precisely 400; in America it is 386. In Russia, the proportion per thousand in the spring-and-summer half of the year is 600; in America it is 614. There is a slightly greater tendency to spring-and-summer suicide in the United States than in Russia, but the variation is only a little more than one per cent., and taking into consideration the great difference between the oppressed and ignorant peasants of Russia, and the free, well-educated citizens of our own country, the practical identity of their seasonal suicide rates seems to me a most extraordinary social and psychological fact. This, however, is by no means a complete statement of the problem involved in the seasonal distribution of suicides. Spring and summer are the suicide seasons, not only among the closely related nationalities of Europe and the United States, but among the ethnologically alien peoples of the Far East. The reports of the Statistical Bureau of Japan show that between 1899 and 1903 the average annual number of suicides was 8,840. They were distributed through the year as follows: winter 1,711, spring 2,475, summer 2,703, fall 1,951. If we divide the year into halves, we find that 59 per cent. of the Japanese suicides occur in the spring and summer months and only 41 per cent. in the months of fall and winter. This corresponds almost exactly with the annual distribution of suicides in the United States, in Russia, and in Europe as a whole. The seasonal percentages may be shown in tabular form as follows:[18] United States Russia Europe Japan per cent. per cent. per cent. per cent. Spring and summer 61 60 59 59 Fall and winter 39 40 41 41 It thus appears that the tendency of mankind to commit suicide in spring and summer, rather than in fall and winter, is quite as strongly marked in Japan as it is in Europe and America. Despite all differences of character and environment, the suicidal impulses of Yankee, muzhik, and coolie are governed by the same law. _Suicide Weather_