I spent a day reading through clippings about Golden Gate Bridge suicides in the San Francisco Public Library, hundreds of two- or three-inch tales of woe from the Chronicle, the Examiner, the Call-Bulletin: "police said he was despondent over domestic affairs"; "medical discharge from the army"; "jobless butcher"; "the upholstery still retaining the warmth of the driver's body"; "saying 'goodbye' four times and looking 'very sad'"; "'sick at heart' over the treatment of Jewish relatives in Germany"; "the baby's cries apparently irritated him past endurance"; "footprints on the fog-wet girders were found early today"; "using his last nickel to scratch a farewell on the guard railing."