The author investigates how people in 18th-century England acquired a reputation as being suicide prone & whether or not this reputation was justified. He concludes that, to a large extent, this belief was grounded in hearsay & general impressions & not upon an examination of the evidence. This belief was perpetuated not only by foreign tourists but also by the English themselves. However, once the evidence was examined it seems that this reputation of the English had been greatly exaggerated.