Ten Days in a Mad-House and Other Stories (14 page)

faces of the unruly patients. The night nurse, Conway I believe her

name is, is very cross. In hall 7, if any of the patients possessed any

modesty, they soon lost it. Every one was compelled to undress in

the hall before their own door, and to fold their clothes and leave

them there until morning. I asked to undress in my room, but Miss

Conway told me if she ever caught me at such a trick she would give

me cause not to want to repeat it.

The first doctor I saw here–Dr. Caldwell–chucked me under the chin,

and as I was tired refusing to tell where my home was, I would only

speak to him in Spanish.

Hall 7 looks rather nice to a casual visitor. It is hung with cheap pictures and has a piano, which is presided over by Miss Mattie

Morgan, who formerly was in a music store in this city. She has been

training several of the patients to sing, with some show of success.

The artiste of the hall is Under, pronounced Wanda, a Polish girl. She

is a gifted pianist when she chooses to display her ability. The most

difficult music she reads at a glance, and her touch and expression

are perfect.

On Sunday the quieter patients, whose names have been handed in

by the attendants during the week, are allowed to go to church. A

small Catholic chapel is on the island, and other services are also

held.

A “commissioner” came one day, and made the rounds with Dr.

Dent. In the basement they found half the nurses gone to dinner,

leaving the other half in charge of us, as was always done.

Immediately orders were given to bring the nurses back to their

duties until after the patients had finished eating. Some of the

patients wanted to speak about their having no salt, but were

prevented.

The insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island is a human rat-trap. It is

easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out. I had

intended to have myself committed to the violent wards, the Lodge

and Retreat, but when I got the testimony of two sane women and

could give it, I decided not to risk my health–and hair–so I did not

get violent.

I had, toward the last, been shut off from all visitors, and so when

the lawyer, Peter A. Hendricks, came and told me that friends of

mine were willing to take charge of me if I would rather be with them than in the asylum, I was only too glad to give my consent. I

asked him to send me something to eat immediately on his arrival in

the city, and then I waited anxiously for my release.

It came sooner than I had hoped. I was out “in line” taking a walk,

and had just gotten interested in a poor woman who had fainted

away while the nurses were trying to compel her to walk. “Good-

bye; I am going home,” I called to Pauline Moser, as she went past

with a woman on either side of her. Sadly I said farewell to all I

knew as I passed them on my way to freedom and life, while they

were left behind to a fate worse than death. “
Adios
,” I murmured to

the Mexican woman. I kissed my fingers to her, and so I left my

companions of hall 7.

I had looked forward so eagerly to leaving the horrible place, yet

when my release came and I knew that God’s sunlight was to be free

for me again, there was a certain pain in leaving. For ten days I had

been one of them. Foolishly enough, it seemed intensely selfish to

leave them to their sufferings. I felt a Quixotic desire to help them by

sympathy and presence. But only for a moment. The bars were down

and freedom was sweeter to me than ever.

Soon I was crossing the river and nearing New York. Once again I

was a free girl after ten days in the mad-house on Blackwell’s Island.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION.

SOON after I had bidden farewell to the Blackwell’s Island Insane

Asylum, I was summoned to appear before the Grand Jury. I

answered the summons with pleasure, because I longed to help

those of God’s most unfortunate children whom I had left prisoners

behind me. If I could not bring them that boon of all boons, liberty, I

hoped at least to influence others to make life more bearable for

them. I found the jurors to be gentlemen, and that I need not tremble

before their twenty-three august presences.

I swore to the truth of my story, and then I related all–from my start

at the Temporary Home until my release. Assistant District-Attorney

Vernon M. Davis conducted the examination. The jurors then

requested that I should accompany them on a visit to the Island. I

was glad to consent.

No one was expected to know of the contemplated trip to the Island,

yet we had not been there very long before one of the commissioners

of charity and Dr. MacDonald, of Ward’s Island, were with us. One

of the jurors told me that in conversation with a man about the

asylum, he heard that they were notified of our coming an hour

before we reached the Island. This must have been done while the

Grand Jury were examining the insane pavilion at Bellevue.

The trip to the island was vastly different to my first. This time we

went on a clean new boat, while the one I had traveled in, they said,

was laid up for repairs.

Some of the nurses were examined by the jury, and made

contradictory statements to one another, as well as to my story. They

confessed that the jury’s contemplated visit had been talked over

between them and the doctor. Dr. Dent confessed that he had no

means by which to tell positively if the bath was cold and of the

number of women put into the same water. He knew the food was

not what it should be, but said it was due to the lack of funds.

If nurses were cruel to their patients, had he any positive means of

ascertaining it? No, he had not. He said all the doctors were not

competent, which was also due to the lack of means to secure good

medical men. In the conversation with me, he said:

“I am glad you did this now, and had I known your purpose, I

would have aided you. We have no means of learning the way

things are going except to do as you did. Since your story was

published I found a nurse at the Retreat who had watches set for our

approach, just as you had stated. She was dismissed.”

Miss Anne Neville was brought down, and I went into the hall to

meet her, knowing that the sight of so many strange gentlemen

would excite her, even if she be sane. It was as I feared. The

attendants had told her she was going to be examined by a crowd of

men, and she was shaking with fear. Although I had left her only

two weeks before, yet she looked as if she had suffered a severe

illness, in that time, so changed was her appearance. I asked her if

she had taken any medicine, and she answered in the affirmative. I

then told her that all I wanted her to do was tell the jury all we had

done since I was brought with her to the asylum, so they would be

convinced that I was sane. She only knew me as Miss Nellie Brown,

and was wholly ignorant of my story.

She was not sworn, but her story must have convinced all hearers of

the truth of my statements.

“When Miss Brown and I were brought here the nurses were cruel

and the food was too bad to eat. We did not have enough clothing,

and Miss Brown asked for more all the time. I thought she was very

kind, for when a doctor promised her some clothing she said she

would give it to me. Strange to say, ever since Miss Brown has been

taken away everything is different. The nurses are very kind and we

are given plenty to wear. The doctors come to see us often and the

food is greatly improved.”

Did we need more evidence?

The jurors then visited the kitchen. It was very clean, and two barrels

of salt stood conspicuously open near the door! The bread on

exhibition was beautifully white and wholly unlike what was given

us to eat.

We found the halls in the finest order. The beds were improved, and

in hall 7 the buckets in which we were compelled to wash had been

replaced by bright new basins.

The institution was on exhibition, and no fault could be found.

But the women I had spoken of, where were they? Not one was to be

found where I had left them. If my assertions were not true in regard

to these patients, why should the latter be changed, so to make me

unable to find them? Miss Neville complained before the jury of

being changed several times. When we visited the hall later she was

returned to her old place.

Mary Hughes, of whom I had spoken as appearing sane, was not to

be found. Some relatives had taken her away. Where, they knew not.

The fair woman I spoke of, who had been sent here because she was

poor, they said had been transferred to another island. They denied

all knowledge of the Mexican woman, and said there never had been

such a patient. Mrs. Cotter had been discharged, and Bridget

McGuinness and Rebecca Farron had been transferred to other

quarters. The German girl, Margaret, was not to be found, and

Louise had been sent elsewhere from hall 6. The Frenchwoman,

Josephine, a great, healthy woman, they said was dying of paralysis,

and we could not see her. If I was wrong in my judgment of these

patients’ sanity, why was all this done? I saw Tillie Mayard, and she

had changed so much for the worse that I shuddered when I looked

at her.

I hardly expected the grand jury to sustain me, after they saw

everything different from what it had been while I was there. Yet

they did, and their report to the court advises all the changes made

that I had proposed.

Ten Days in a Mad-House

I have one consolation for my work–on the strength of my story the

committee of appropriation provides $1,000,000 more than was ever

before given, for the benefit of the insane.

[THE END.]

Ten Days in a Mad-House

Miscellaneous Sketches.

BY NELLIE BLY.

TRYING TO BE A SERVANT.

MY STRANGE EXPERIENCE AT TWO EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES
.

ONE but the initiated know what a great

question the servant question is and how many

perplexing sides it has. The mistresses and

servants, of course, fill the leading
roles
. Then, in

the lesser, but still important parts, come the

agencies, which despite the many voices

clamoring against them, declare themselves

public benefactors. Even the “funny man”

manages to fill a great deal of space with the

subject. It is a serious question, since it affects all

one holds dear in life–one’s dinner, one’s bed,

and one’s linen. I had heard so many complaints

from long-suffering mistresses, worked-out servants, agencies, and

lawyers, that I determined to investigate the subject to my own

satisfaction. There was only one way to do it. That was to personate

a servant and apply for a situation. I knew that there might be such

things as “references” required, and, as I had never tested my

abilities in this line, I did not know how to furnish them. Still, it

would not do to allow a little thing like a “reference “ to stop me in