The Associated Press reported in a dispatch from Vienna today that the Austrian Cabinet has ordered reductions in the price of food necessities in an effort to check the increasing suicide rate.
Milk, sugar and coffee were included in the latest move to case the economic pressure which is believed to be the main cause of the wave of daily suicides.
Although open anti-Semitism is not conspicuous in Austria, an increasing number of Jews, many of them exiles from Germany, are killing themselves or are among the 200 persons who call each month at the semi-official department for people who are tired of living (Lebonsmuedenstelle).
Utterly dejected, they lay bare their woes and are offered as much help as possible in readjusting themselves, the dispatch said.
Although the department has aided more than 15,000 persons since it was started in 1928, the number of suicides reported is growing constantly.
Official statistics are almost impossible to got, but it is estimated that in Vienna alone six persons seek death every day. More men than women are victims of the suicide epidemic, according to the bureau.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
