Whatever may be the reasons for differences in national suicide rates, and whatever may be the causes that have produced them, there is little doubt, I think, that the rates themselves are true manifestations of national character, and that they are as permanent as the character of which they are an outcome. When, therefore, a people migrates from one place to another, it takes both its character and its suicide rate to the new location. This is clearly apparent in the vital statistics of immigrants who come from various parts of Europe to the United States. Such immigrants, as a rule, prosper here and become happier here, but the increased prosperity and happiness do not greatly affect the suicidal tendencies that they had when they were poor and wretched in their original homes. Even their descendants, born in America, keep substantially unchanged the suicide rates that they have inherited, with their character, from their European ancestors. The Germans who came here forty or fifty years ago brought a high suicide rate with them, and their descendants maintain it. The Irish, on the contrary, brought a low suicide rate to this country, and their children have it still. In the following table will be found the suicide rates of a few nationalities in Europe and of their descendants in the United States.[22] SUICIDES PER MILLION OF POPULATION NATIONALITIES IN EUROPE IN THE U. S. Native Americans 68 Hungarians 114 118 Germans 213 193 French 228 220 English 100 104 In an address delivered before the Anthropological Society of Washington, D. C., on October 19, 1880, Mr. M. B. W. Hough said: "As long as the features of the ancestor are repeated in his descendants, so long will the traits of his character reappear. Language may change, customs be left behind, races may migrate from place to place and subsist on whatever the country they occupy affords; but their fundamental characteristics will survive, because they are comparatively uninfluenced by the mere accidents of nutrition." This statement is as true of suicide as it is of other manifestations of national character. _Odd Methods Employed by Suicides_