Note: This story first appeared in L'Écho de Paris, September 16, 1889.

Synopsis: The narrator reads in the newspaper that more than 8,500 people committed suicide in the past year. Shaken by the thought of how much suffering that represents, he begins to ponder what things would be like if progressive democratic society invented an easily available, pleasant means of suicide. He imagines stepping a couple decades into the future and visiting the public establishment for voluntary death-- a bitter, satirical portrait is painted.