Free Ten Days in a Mad-House and Other Stories by Nellie Bly Page B

it. You want to kill me,” and then she would sob and cry.
    The women “on the rope,” as the patients call it, were each busy on
    their individual freaks. Some were yelling all the while. One who

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Ten Days in a Mad-House
    had blue eyes saw me look at her, and she turned as far as she could,
    talking and smiling, with that terrible, horrifying look of absolute
    insanity stamped on her. The doctors might safely judge on her case.
    The horror of that sight to one who had never been near an insane
    person before, was something unspeakable.
    “God help them!” breathed Miss Neville. “It is so dreadful I cannot
    look.”
    On they passed, but for their places to be filled by more. Can you
    imagine the sight? According to one of the physicians there are 1600
    insane women on Blackwell’s Island.
    Mad! what can be half so horrible? My heart thrilled with pity when
    I looked on old, gray-haired women talking aimlessly to space. One
    woman had on a straightjacket, and two women had to drag her
    along. Crippled, blind, old, young, homely, and pretty; one senseless
    mass of humanity. No fate could be worse.
    I looked at the pretty lawns, which I had once thought was such a
    comfort to the poor creatures confined on the Island, and laughed at
    my own notions. What enjoyment is it to them? They are not allowed
    on the grass–it is only to look at. I saw some patients eagerly and
    caressingly lift a nut or a colored leaf that had fallen on the path. But
    they were not permitted to keep them. The nurses would always
    compel them to throw their little bit of God’s comfort away.
    As I passed a low pavilion, where a crowd of helpless lunatics were
    confined, I read a motto on the wall, “While I live I hope.” The
    absurdity of it struck me forcibly. I would have liked to put above
    the gates that open to the asylum, “He who enters here leaveth hope
    behind.”
    During the walk I was annoyed a great deal by nurses who had
    heard my romantic story calling to those in charge of us to ask which
    one I was. I was pointed out repeatedly.

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    Ten Days in a Mad-House

    It was not long until the dinner hour arrived and I was so hungry
    that I felt I could eat anything. The same old story of standing for a
    half and three-quarters of an hour in the hall was repeated before we
    got down to our dinners. The bowls in which we had had our tea
    were now filled with soup, and on a plate was one cold boiled potato
    and a chunk of beef, which on investigation, proved to be slightly
    spoiled. There were no knives or forks, and the patients looked fairly
    savage as they took the tough beef in their fingers and pulled in
    opposition to their teeth. Those toothless or with poor teeth could
    not eat it. One tablespoon was given for the soup, and a piece of
    bread was the final entree. Butter is never allowed at dinner nor
    coffee or tea. Miss Mayard could not eat, and I saw many of the sick
    ones turn away in disgust. I was getting very weak from the want of
    food and tried to eat a slice of bread. After the first few bites hunger
    asserted itself, and I was able to eat all but the crusts of the one slice.
    Superintendent Dent went through the sitting-room, giving an
    occasional “How do you do?” “How are you to-day?” here and there
    among the patients. His voice was as cold as the hall, and the
    patients made no movement to tell him of their sufferings. I asked

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Ten Days in a Mad-House
    some of them to tell how they were suffering from the cold and
    insufficiency of clothing, but they replied that the nurse would beat
    them if they told.
    I was never so tired as I grew sitting on those benches. Several of the
    patients would sit on one foot or sideways to make a change, but
    they were always reproved and told to sit up straight. If they talked
    they were scolded and told to shut up; if they wanted to walk
    around in order to take the stiffness out of them, they were told to sit
    down and be still. What, excepting torture, would produce