JAPAN: Suicide Point

Once morbid Japanese ripe for Death would dispatch themselves with a dagger, elaborately disemboweling themselves in a ritual of exquisite pain. Today such heroic acts of hara-kiri ("belly-cut") are rare. Suicide has gone cheap, and last week Japan's go-getting suicide tycoon, owl-eyed Jinnojo Hayashi, scored another coup. For the second time this year sensation-hungry tourists at his Suicide Point witnessed a triple plunge into the sulphur-stinking maw of Death.

Respected Mr. Hayashi is president of the highly profitable and progressive Tokyowan Kisen Kaisha (Tokyo Bay Steamship Co.) which is proudly building the...