Ten Days in a Mad-House. (2024)

A Celebration of Women Writers

arrest and treatment of patients in Blackwell's Island Insane Asylum

gender, class, ethnicity

PRICE TWENTY-FIVE CENTS.

Ten Days
In a
Mad-House.

BY NELLIE BLY.

NEW YORK:
NORMAN L. MUNRO, PUBLISHER,
24 AND 26 VANDEWATER STREET.

TEN DAYS IN A MAD-HOUSE;
OR,
Nellie Bly's Experience on Blackwell's Island.

FEIGNING INSANITY IN ORDER TO REVEAL ASYLUM HORRORS.

THE TRYING ORDEAL OF THE NEW YORK WORLD'S
GIRL CORRESPONDENT.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887,by Norman L. Munro, in the office of the Librarian of Congress,at Washington, D.C.

NEW YORK:
NORMAN L. MUNRO, PUBLISHER,
24 AND 26 VANDEWATER STREET.

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INTRODUCTION.

SINCE my experiences in Blackwell's Island Insane Asylum werepublished in the World I have received hundreds of lettersin regard to it. The edition containing my story long since ranout, and I have been prevailed upon to allow it to be publishedin book form, to satisfy the hundreds who are yet asking forcopies.

I am happy to be able to state as a result of my visit to theasylum and the exposures consequent thereon, that the City of NewYork has appropriated $1,000,000 more per annum than ever beforefor the care of the insane. So I have at least the satisfactionof knowing that the poor unfortunates will be the better caredfor because of my work.

TEN DAYS IN A MAD-HOUSE.

CHAPTER I.
A DELICATE MISSION.

ON the 22d of September I was asked by the World if I could havemyself committed to one of the asylums for the insane in New York, witha view to writing a plain and unvarnished narrative of the treatment ofthe patients therein and the methods of management, etc. Did I thinkI had the courage to go through such an ordeal as the mission would demand? Could I assume the characteristics of insanity to such a degree that Icould pass the doctors, live for a week among the insane without the authorities there finding out that I was only a "chiel amang'em takin' notes?" I said I believed I could. I had some faith in my ownability as an actress and thought I could assume insanity long enough toaccomplish any mission intrusted to me. Could I pass a week in theinsane ward at Blackwell's Island? I said I could and I would. And I did.

My instructions were simply to go on with my work as soon as I feltthat I was ready. I was to chronicle faithfully the experiences I underwent,and when once within the walls of the asylum to find out and describe itsinside workings, which are always, so effectually hidden by white-cappednurses, as well as by bolts and bars, from the knowledge of the public."We do not ask you to go there for the purpose of making sensational revelations.Write up things as you find them, good or bad; give praise or blame asyou think best, and the truth all the time. But I am afraid of that chronicsmile of yours," said the editor. "I will smile no more," I said, and Iwent away to execute my delicate and, as I found out, difficult mission.

If I did get into the asylum, which I hardly hoped to do, I had no ideathat my experiences would contain aught else than a simple tale of life in an asylum. That such an institution could be mismanaged,and that cruelties could exist 'neath its roof, I did not deem possible.I always had a desire to know asylum life more thoroughly–a desire tobe convinced that the most helpless of God's creatures, the insane,were cared for kindly and properly. The many stories I had read ofabuses in such institutions I had regarded as wildly exaggerated or elseromances, yet there was a latent desire to know positively.

I shuddered to think how completely the insane were in the powerof their keepers, and how one could weep and plead for release, and allof no avail, if the keepers were so minded. Eagerly I accepted themission to learn the inside workings of the Blackwell Island Insane Asylum.

"How will you get me out," I asked my editor, "after I once get in?"

"I do not know," he replied, "but we will get you out if we haveto tell who you are, and for what purpose you feigned insanity–onlyget in."

I had little belief in my ability to deceive the insanity experts, andI think my editor had less.

All the preliminary preparations for my ordeal were left to be plannedby myself. Only one thing was decided upon, namely, that I shouldpass under the pseudonym of Nellie Brown, the initials of which would agree with my own name and my linen, so that there would be no difficultyin keeping track of my movements and assisting me out of any difficultiesor dangers I might get into. There were ways of getting into the insaneward, but I did not know them. I might adopt one of two courses. EitherI could feign insanity at the house of friends, and get myself committedon the decision of two competent physicians, or I could go to mygoal by way of the police courts.

On reflection I thought it wiser not to inflict myself upon my friendsor to get any good-natured doctors to assist me in my purpose. Besides,to get to Blackwell's Island my friends would have had to feign poverty,and, unfortunately for the end I had in view, my acquaintance with thestruggling poor, except my own self, was only very superficial. So I determinedupon the plan which led me to the successful accomplishment of my mission.I succeeded in getting committed to the insane ward at Blackwell's Island,where I spent ten days and nights and had an experience which I shall neverforget. I took upon myself to enact the part of a poor, unfortunate crazygirl, and felt it my duty not to shirk any of the disagreeable resultsthat should follow. I became one of the city's insane wards for that lengthof time, experienced much, and saw and heard more of the treatment accordedto this helpless class of our population, and when I had seen and heardenough, my release was promptly secured. I left the insane ward with pleasureand regret–pleasure that I was once more able to enjoy the free breathof heaven; regret that I could not have brought with me some of the unfortunatewomen who lived and suffered with me, and who, I am convinced, are justas sane as I was and am now myself.

But here let me say one thing: From the moment I entered the insaneward on the Island, I made no attempt to keep up the assumed roleof insanity. I talked and acted just as I do in ordinary life. Yet strangeto say, the more sanely I talked and acted the crazier I was thought tobe by all except one physician, whose kindness and gentle ways I shallnot soon forget.

CHAPTER II.
PREPARING FOR THE ORDEAL.

BUT to return to my work and my mission. After receiving myinstructions I returned to my boarding-house, and when eveningcame I began to practice the role in which I was to makemy debut on the morrow. What a difficult task, I thought, toappear before a crowd of people and convince them that I wasinsane. I had never been near insane persons before in my life,and had not the faintest idea of what their actions were like.And then to be examined by a number of learned physicians whomake insanity a specialty, and who daily come in contactwith insane people! How could I hope to pass these doctorsand convince them that I was crazy? I feared that they could notbe deceived. I began to think my task a hopeless one; but it hadto be done. So I flew to the mirror and examined my face. Iremembered all I had read of the doings of crazy people, how firstof all they have staring eyes, and so I opened mine as wide aspossible and stared unblinkingly at my own reflection. I assureyou the sight was not reassuring, even to myself, especially inthe dead of night. I tried to turn the gas up higher in hopesthat it would raise my courage. I succeeded only partially, but Iconsoled myself with the thought that in a few nights more Iwould not be there, but locked up in a cell with a lot oflunatics.

The weather was not cold; but, nevertheless, when I thought ofwhat was to come, wintery chills ran races up and down myback in very mockery of the perspiration which was slowly butsurely taking the curl out of my bangs. Between times, practicingbefore the mirror and picturing my future as a lunatic, I readsnatches of improbable and impossible ghost stories, so that whenthe dawn came to chase away the night, I felt that I was in a fitmood for my mission, yet hungry enough to feel keenly that I wanted my breakfast. Slowly and sadly I took mymorning bath and quietly bade farewell to a few of the mostprecious articles known to modern civilization. Tenderly I put mytooth-brush aside, and, when taking a final rub of the soap, Imurmured, "It may be for days, and it may be–for longer." Then I donned the old clothing I had selectedfor the occasion. I was in the mood to look at everything throughvery serious glasses. It's just as well to take a last "fondlook," I mused, for who could tell but that the strain ofplaying crazy, and being shut up with a crowd of madpeople, might turn my own brain, and I would never get back. Butnot once did I think of shirking my mission. Calmly, outwardly atleast, I went out to my crazy business.

I first thought it best to go to a boarding-house, and, aftersecuring lodging, confidentially tell the landlady, or lord,whichever it might chance to be, that I was seeking work, and, ina few days after, apparently go insane. When I reconsidered the idea, I feared it would take too long to mature. Suddenly Ithought how much easier it would be to go to a boarding-home forworking women. I knew, if once I made a houseful of women believeme crazy, that they would never rest until I was out of theirreach and in secure quarters.

From a directory I selected the Temporary Home for Females,No. 84 Second Avenue. As I walked down the avenue, I determinedthat, once inside the Home, I should do the best I could to getstarted on my journey to Blackwell's Island and the InsaneAsylum.

CHAPTER III.
IN THE TEMPORARY HOME.

I WAS left to begin my career as Nellie Brown, the insane girl. As Iwalked down the avenue I tried to assume the look which maidens wear inpictures entitled "Dreaming." "Far-away" expressions have a crazy air.I passed through the little paved yard to the entrance of the Home. I pulledthe bell, which sounded loud enough for a church chime, and nervously awaitedthe opening of the door to the Home, which I intended should ere long castme forth and out upon the charity of the police. The door was thrown backwith a vengeance, and a short, yellow-haired girl of some thirteen summersstood before me.

"Is the matron in?" I asked, faintly.

"Yes, she's in; she's busy. Go to the back parlor," answered the girl,in a loud voice, without one change in her peculiarly matured face.

I followed these not overkind or polite instructions and found myselfin a dark, uncomfortable back-parlor. There I awaited the arrival of myhostess. I had been seated some twenty minutes at the least, when a slenderwoman, clad in a plain, dark dress entered and, stopping before me, ejacul*tedinquiringly, "Well?"

"Are you the matron?" I asked.

"No," she replied, "the matron is sick; I am her assistant. What doyou want?"

"I want to stay here for a few days, if you can accommodate me."

"Well, I have no single rooms, we are so crowded; but if you will occupya room with another girl, I shall do that much for you."

"I shall be glad of that," I answered. "How much do you charge?" I hadbrought only about seventy cents along with me, knowing full well thatthe sooner my funds were exhausted the sooner I should be put out, andto be put out was what I was working for.

"We charge thirty cents a night," was her reply to my question, andwith that I paid her for one night's lodging, and she left me on the pleaof having something else to look after. Left to amuse myself as best Icould, I took a survey of my surroundings.

They were not cheerful, to say the least. A wardrobe, desk, book-case,organ, and several chairs completed the furnishment of the room, into whichthe daylight barely came.

By the time I had become familiar with my quarters a bell, which rivaledthe door-bell in its loudness, began clanging in the basem*nt, and simultaneouslywomen went trooping down-stairs from all parts of the house. I imagined,from the obvious signs, that dinner was served, but as no one had saidanything to me I made no effort to follow in the hungry train. Yet I didwish that some one would invite me down. It always produces such a lonely,homesick feeling to know others are eating, and we haven't a chance, evenif we are not hungry. I was glad when the assistant matron came up andasked me if I did not want something to eat. I replied that I did, andthen I asked her what her name was. Mrs. Stanard, she said, and I immediatelywrote it down in a notebook I had taken with me for the purpose of makingmemoranda, and in which I had written several pages of utter nonsense forinquisitive scientists.

Thus equipped I awaited developments. But my dinner–well, I followedMrs. Stanard down the uncarpeted stairs into the basem*nt; where a largenumber of women were eating. She found room for me at a table with threeother women. The short-haired slavey who had opened the door now put inan appearance as waiter. Placing her arms akimbo and staring me out ofcountenance she said:

"Boiled mutton, boiled beef, beans, potatoes, coffee or tea?"

"Beef, potatoes, coffee and bread," I responded.

"Bread goes in," she explained, as she made her way to the kitchen,which was in the rear. It was not very long before she returned with whatI had ordered on a large, badly battered tray, which she banged down beforeme. I began my simple meal. It was not very enticing, so while making afeint of eating I watched the others.

I have often moralized on the repulsive form charity always assumes!Here was a home for deserving women and yet what a mockery the name was.The floor was bare, and the little wooden tables were sublimely ignorantof such modern beautifiers as varnish, polish and table-covers. It is uselessto talk about the cheapness of linen and its effect on civilization. Yetthese honest workers, the most deserving of women, are asked to call thisspot of bareness–home.

When the meal was finished each woman went to the desk in the corner,where Mrs. Stanard sat, and paid her bill. I was given a much-used, andabused, red check, by the original piece of humanity in shape of my waitress.My bill was about thirty cents.

After dinner I went up-stairs and resumed my former place in the backparlor. I was quite cold and uncomfortable, and had fully made up my mindthat I could not endure that sort of business long, so the sooner I assumedmy insane points the sooner I would be released from enforced idleness.Ah! that was indeed the longest day I had ever lived. I listlessly watchedthe women in the front parlor, where all sat except myself.

One did nothing but read and scratch her head and occasionally callout mildly, "Georgie," without lifting her eyes from her book. "Georgie"was her over-frisky boy, who had more noise in him than any child I eversaw before. He did everything that was rude and unmannerly, I thought,and the mother never said a word unless she heard some one else yell athim. Another woman always kept going to sleep and waking herself up withher own snoring. I really felt wickedly thankful it was only herself sheawakened. The majority of the women sat there doing nothing, but therewere a few who made lace and knitted unceasingly. The enormous door-bellseemed to be going all the time, and so did the short-haired girl. Thelatter was, besides, one of those girls who sing all the time snatches ofall the songs and hymns that have been composed for the last fifty years.There is such a thing as martyrdom in these days. The ringing of the bellbrought more people who wanted shelter for the night. Excepting one woman,who was from the country on a day's shopping expedition, they were workingwomen, some of them with children.

As it drew toward evening Mrs. Stanard came to me and said:

"What is wrong with you? Have you some sorrow or trouble?"

"No," I said, almost stunned at the suggestion. "Why?"

"Oh, because," she said, womanlike, "I can see it in your face. It tellsthe story of a great trouble."

"Yes, everything is so sad," I said, in a haphazard way, which I hadintended to reflect my craziness.

"But you must not allow that to worry you. We all have our troubles,but we get over them in good time. What kind of work are you trying toget?"

"I do not know; it's all so sad," I replied.

"Would you like to be a nurse for children and wear a nice white capand apron?" she asked.

I put my handkerchief up to my face to hide a smile, and replied ina muffled tone, "I never worked; I don't know how."

"But you must learn," she urged; "all these women here work."

"Do they?" I said, in a low, thrilling whisper. "Why, they look horribleto me; just like crazy women. I am so afraid of them."

"They don't look very nice," she answered, assentingly, "but they aregood, honest working women. We do not keep crazy people here."

I again used my handkerchief to hide a smile, as I thought that beforemorning she would at least think she had one crazy person among her flock.

"They all look crazy," I asserted again, "and I am afraid of them. Thereare so many crazy people about, and one can never tell what they willdo. Then there are so many murders committed, and the police never catchthe murderers," and I finished with a sob that would have broken up anaudience of blase critics. She gave a sudden and convulsive start,and I knew my first stroke had gone home. It was amusing to see what aremarkably short time it took her to get up from her chair and to whisperhurriedly: "I'll come back to talk with you after a while." I knew shewould not come back and she did not.

When the supper-bell rang I went along with the others to the basem*ntand partook of the evening meal, which was similar to dinner, except thatthere was a smaller bill of fare and more people, the women who are employedoutside during the day having returned. After the evening meal we all adjournedto the parlors, where all sat, or stood, as there were not chairs enoughto go round.

It was a wretchedly lonely evening, and the light which fell from thesolitary gas jet in the parlor, and oil-lamp the hall, helped to envelopus in a dusky hue and dye our spirits navy blue. I felt it would not requiremany inundations of this atmosphere to make me a fit subject for the placeI was striving to reach.

I watched two women, who seemed of all the crowd to be the most sociable,and I selected them as the ones to work out my salvation, or, more properlyspeaking, my condemnation and conviction. Excusing myself and saying thatI felt lonely, I asked if I might join their company. They graciously consented,so with my hat and gloves on, which no one had asked me to lay aside, Isat down and listened to the rather wearisome conversation, in which Itook no part, merely keeping up my sad look, saying "Yes," or "No," or"I can't say," to their observations. Several times I told them I thoughteverybody in the house looked crazy, but they were slow to catch on tomy very original remark. One said her name was Mrs. King and that she wasa Southern woman. Then she said that I had a Southern accent. She askedme bluntly if I did not really come from the South. I said "Yes." The otherwoman got to talking about the Boston boats and asked me if I knew at whattime they left.

For a moment I forgot my role of assumed insanity, and told herthe correct hour of departure. She then asked me what work I was goingto do, or if I had ever done any. I replied that I thought it very sadthat there were so many working people in the world. She said in replythat she had been unfortunate and had come to New York, where she had workedat correcting proofs on a medical dictionary for some time, but that herhealth had given way under the task, and that she was now going to Bostonagain. When the maid came to tell us to go to bed I remarked that I wasafraid, and again ventured the assertion that all the women in the houseseemed to be crazy. The nurse insisted on my going to bed. I asked if Icould not sit on the stairs, but she said, decisively: "No; for every onein the house would think you were crazy." Finally I allowed them to takeme to a room.

Here I must introduce a new personage by name into my narrative. Itis the woman who had been a proofreader, and was about to return to Boston.She was a Mrs. Caine, who was as courageous as she was good-hearted. Shecame into my room, and sat and talked with me a long time, taking downmy hair with gentle ways. She tried to persuade me to undress and go tobed, but I stubbornly refused to do so. During this time a number of theinmates of the house had gathered around us. They expressed themselvesin various ways. "Poor loon!" they said. "Why, she's crazy enough!" "I amafraid to stay with such a crazy being in house." "She will murder us allbefore morning." One woman was for sending for a policeman to take me atonce. They were all in a terrible and real state of fright.

No one wanted to be responsible for me, and the woman who was to occupythe room with me declared that she would not stay with that "crazy woman"for all the money of the Vanderbilts. It was then that Mrs. Caine saidshe would stay with me. I told her I would like to have her do so. So shewas left with me. She didn't undress, but lay down on the bed, watchfulof my movements. She tried to induce me to lie down, but I was afraid todo this. I knew that if I once gave way I should fall asleep and dreamas pleasantly and peacefully as a child. I should, to use a slang expression,be liable to "give myself dead away." So I insisted on sitting on the sideof the bed and staring blankly at vacancy. My poor companion was put intoa wretched state of unhappiness. Every few moments she would rise up tolook at me. She told me that my eyes shone terribly brightly and then beganto question me, asking me where I had lived, how long I had been in NewYork, what I had been doing, and many things besides. To all her questioningsI had but one response–I told her that I had forgotten everything, thatever since my headache had come on I could not remember.

Poor soul! How cruelly I tortured her, and what a kind heart she had!But how I tortured all of them! One of them dreamed of me–as a nightmare.After I had been in the room an hour or so, I was myself startled by hearinga woman screaming in the next room. I began to imagine that I was reallyin an insane asylum.

Mrs. Caine woke up, looked around, frightened, andlistened. She then went out and into the next room, and I heard her askinganother woman some questions. When she came back she told me that the womanhad had a hideous nightmare. She had been dreaming of me. She had seenme, she said, rushing at her with a knife in my hand, with the intentionof killing her. In trying to escape me she had fortunately been able toscream, and so to awaken herself and scare off her nightmare. Then Mrs.Caine got into bed again, considerably agitated, but very sleepy.

I was weary, too, but I had braced myself up to the work, and was determinedto keep awake all night so as to carry on my work of impersonation to asuccessful end in the morning. I heard midnight. I had yet six hours towait for daylight. The time passed with excruciating slowness. Minutesappeared hours. The noises in the house and on the avenue ceased.

Fearing that sleep would coax me into its grasp, I commenced to reviewmy life. How strange it all seems! One incident, if never so trifling,is but a link more to chain us to our unchangeable fate. I began at thebeginning, and lived again the story of my life. Old friends were recalledwith a pleasurable thrill; old enmities, old heartaches, old joys wereonce again present. The turned-down pages of my life were turned up, andthe past was present.

When it was completed, I turned my thoughts bravely to the future, wondering,first, what the next day would bring forth, then making plans for the carryingout of my project. I wondered if I should be able to pass over the riverto the goal of my strange ambition, to become eventually an inmate of thehalls inhabited by my mentally wrecked sisters. And then, once in, whatwould be my experience? And after? How to get out? Bah! I said, they willget me out.

That was the greatest night of my existence. For a few hours I stoodface to face with "self!"

I looked out toward the window and hailed with joy the slight shimmerof dawn. The light grew strong and gray, but the silence was strikinglystill. My companion slept. I had still an hour or two to pass over. FortunatelyI found some employment for my mental activity. Robert Bruce in his captivityhad won confidence in the future, and passed his time as pleasantly aspossible under the circ*mstances, by watching the celebrated spider buildinghis web. I had less noble vermin to interest me. Yet I believe I made somevaluable discoveries in natural history. I was about to drop off to sleepin spite of myself when I was suddenly startled to wakefulness. I thoughtI heard something crawl and fall down upon the counterpane with an almostinaudible thud.

I had the opportunity of studying these interesting animals very thoroughly.They had evidently come for breakfast, and were not a little disappointedto find that their principal plat was not there. They scamperedup and down the pillow, came together, seemed to hold interesting converse,and acted in every way as if they were puzzled by the absence of an appetizingbreakfast. After one consultation of some length they finally disappeared,seeking victims elsewhere, and leaving me to pass the long minutes by givingmy attention to co*ckroaches, whose size and agility were something of a surpriseto me.

My room companion had been sound asleep for a long time, but she nowwoke up, and expressed surprise at seeing me still awake and apparentlyas lively as a cricket. She was as sympathetic as ever. She came to meand took my hands and tried her best to console me, and asked me if I didnot want to go home. She kept me up-stairs until nearly everybody was outof the house, and then took me down to the basem*nt for coffee and a bun.After that, partaken in silence, I went back to my room, where I sat down,moping. Mrs. Caine grew more and more anxious. "What is to be done?" shekept exclaiming. "Where are your friends?" "No," I answered, "I have nofriends, but I have some trunks. Where are they? I want them." The goodwoman tried to pacify me, saying that they would be found in good time.She believed that I was insane.

Yet I forgive her. It is only after oneis in trouble that one realizes how little sympathy and kindness thereare in the world. The women in the Home who were not afraid of me had wantedto have some amusem*nt at my expense, and so they had bothered me withquestions and remarks that had I been insane would have been cruel andinhumane. Only this one woman among the crowd, pretty and delicate Mrs.Caine, displayed true womanly feeling. She compelled the others to ceaseteasing me and took the bed of the woman who refused to sleep near me.She protested against the suggestion to leave me alone and to have me lockedup for the night so that I could harm no one. She insisted on remainingwith me in order to administer aid should I need it. She smoothed my hairand bathed my brow and talked as soothingly to me as a mother would doto an ailing child. By every means she tried to have me go to bed and rest,and when it drew toward morning she got up and wrapped a blanket aroundme for fear I might get cold; then she kissed me on the brow and whispered,compassionately:

"Poor child, poor child!"

How much I admired that little woman's courage and kindness. How I longedto reassure her and whisper that I was not insane, and how I hoped that,if any poor girl should ever be so unfortunate as to be what I was pretendingto be, she might meet with one who possessed the same spirit of human kindnesspossessed by Mrs. Ruth Caine.

CHAPTER IV.
JUDGE DUFFY AND THE POLICE.

BUT to return to my story. I kept up my role until the assistantmatron, Mrs. Stanard, came in. She tried to persuade me to be calm. I beganto see clearly that she wanted to get me out of the house at all hazards,quietly if possible. This I did not want. I refused to move, but kept upever the refrain of my lost trunks. Finally some one suggested that anofficer be sent for. After awhile Mrs. Stanard put on her bonnet and wentout. Then I knew that I was making an advance toward the home of the insane.Soon she returned, bringing with her two policemen–big, strong men–who entered the room rather unceremoniously, evidently expecting to meetwith a person violently crazy. The name of one of them was Tom Bockert.

When they entered I pretended not to see them. "I want you to take herquietly," said Mrs. Stanard. "If she don't come along quietly," respondedone of the men, "I will drag her through the streets." I still took nonotice of them, but certainly wished to avoid raising a scandal outside.Fortunately Mrs. Caine came to my rescue. She told the officers about myoutcries for my lost trunks, and together they made up a plan to get meto go along with them quietly by telling me they would go with me to lookfor my lost effects. They asked me if I would go. I said I was afraid togo alone. Mrs. Stanard then said she would accompany me, and she arrangedthat the two policemen should follow us at a respectful distance. She tiedon my veil for me, and we left the house by the basem*nt and started acrosstown, the two officers following at some distance behind. We walked alongvery quietly and finally came to the station house, which the good womanassured me was the express office, and that there we should certainly findmy missing effects. I went inside with fear and trembling, for good reason.

A few days previous to this I had met Captain McCullagh at a meetingheld in Cooper Union. At that time I had asked him for some informationwhich he had given me. If he were in, would he not recognize me? And thenall would be lost so far as getting to the island was concerned. I pulledmy sailor hat as low down over my face as I possibly could, and preparedfor the ordeal. Sure enough there was sturdy Captain McCullagh standingnear the desk.

He watched me closely as the officer at the desk conversed in a lowtone with Mrs. Stanard and the policeman who brought me.

"Are you Nellie Brown?" asked the officer. I said I supposed I was."Where do you come from?" he asked. I told him I did not know, and thenMrs. Stanard gave him a lot of information about me–told him how strangelyI had acted at her home; how I had not slept a wink all night, and thatin her opinion I was a poor unfortunate who had been driven crazy by inhumantreatment. There was some discussion between Mrs. Standard and the twoofficers, and Tom Bockert was told to take us down to the court in a car.

"Come along," Bockert said, "I will find your trunk for you." We allwent together, Mrs. Stanard, Tom Bockert, and myself. I said it was verykind of them to go with me, and I should not soon forget them. As we walkedalong I kept up my refrain about my trucks, injecting occasionally someremark about the dirty condition of the streets and the curious characterof the people we met on the way. "I don't think I have ever seen such peoplebefore," I said. "Who are they?" I asked, and my companions looked uponme with expressions of pity, evidently believing I was a foreigner, anemigrant or something of the sort. They told me that the people aroundme were working people. I remarked once more that I thought there weretoo many working people in the world for the amount of work to be done,at which remark Policeman P. T. Bockert eyed me closely, evidently thinkingthat my mind was gone for good. We passed several other policemen, whogenerally asked my sturdy guardians what was the matter with me. By thistime quite a number of ragged children were following us too, and theypassed remarks about me that were to me original as well as amusing.

"What's she up for?" "Say, kop, where did ye get her?" "Where did yerpull 'er?" "She's a daisy!"

Poor Mrs. Stanard was more frightened than I was. The whole situationgrew interesting, but I still had fears for my fate before the judge.

At last we came to a low building, and Tom Bockert kindly volunteeredthe information: "Here's the express office. We shall soon find those trunksof yours."

The entrance to the building was surrounded by a curious crowd and Idid not think my case was bad enough to permit me passing them withoutsome remark, so I asked if all those people had lost their trunks.

"Yes," he said, "nearly all these people are looking for trunks."

I said, "They all seem to be foreigners, too." "Yes," said Tom, "theyare all foreigners just landed. They have all lost their trunks, and ittakes most of our time to help find them for them."

We entered the courtroom. It was the Essex Market Police Courtroom.At last the question of my sanity or insanity was to be decided. JudgeDuffy sat behind the high desk, wearing a look which seemed to indicatethat he was dealing out the milk of human kindness by wholesale. I ratherfeared I would not get the fate I sought, because of the kindness I sawon every line of his face, and it was with rather a sinking heart thatI followed Mrs. Stanard as she answered the summons to go up to the desk,where Tom Bockert had just given an account of the affair.

"Come here," said an officer. "What is your name?"

"Nellie Brown," I replied, with a little accent. "I have lost my trunks,and would like if you could find them."

"When did you come to New York?" he asked.

"I did not come to New York," I replied (while I added, mentally, "becauseI have been here for some time.")

"But you are in New York now," said the man.

"No," I said, looking as incredulous as I thought a crazy person could,"I did not come to New York."

"That girl is from the west," he said, in a tone that made me tremble."She has a western accent."

Some one else who had been listening to the brief dialogue here assertedthat he had lived south and that my accent was southern, while anotherofficer was positive it was eastern. I felt much relieved when the firstspokesman turned to the judge and said:

"Judge, here is a peculiar case of a young woman who doesn't know whoshe is or where she came from. You had better attend to it at once."

I commenced to shake with more than the cold, and I looked around atthe strange crowd about me, composed of poorly dressed men and women withstories printed on their faces of hard lives, abuse and poverty. Some wereconsulting eagerly with friends, while others sat still with a look ofutter hopelessness. Everywhere was a sprinkling of well-dressed, well-fedofficers watching the scene passively and almost indifferently. It wasonly an old story with them. One more unfortunate added to a long listwhich had long since ceased to be of any interest or concern to them.

"Come here, girl, and lift your veil," called out Judge Duffy, in toneswhich surprised me by a harshness which I did not think from the kindlyface he possessed.

"Who are you speaking to?" I inquired, in my stateliest manner.

"Come here, my dear, and lift your veil. You know the Queen of England,if she were here, would have to lift her veil," he said, very kindly.

"That is much better," I replied. "I am not the Queen of England, butI'll lift my veil."

As I did so the little judge looked at me, and then, in a very kind andgentle tone, he said:

"My dear child, what is wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong except that I have lost my trunks, and this man,"indicating Policeman Bockert, "promised to bring me where they could befound."

"What do you know about this child?" asked the judge, sternly, of Mrs.Stanard, who stood, pale and trembling, by my side.

"I know nothing of her except that she came to the home yesterday andasked to remain overnight."

"The home! What do you mean by the home?" asked Judge Duffy, quickly.

"It is a temporary home kept for working women at No. 84 Second Avenue."

"What is your position there?"

"I am assistant matron."

"Well, tell us all you know of the case."

"When I was going into the home yesterday I noticed her coming downthe avenue. She was all alone. I had just got into the house when the bellrang and she came in. When I talked with her she wanted to know if shecould stay all night, and I said she could. After awhile she said all thepeople in the house looked crazy, and she was afraid of them. Then shewould not go to bed, but sat up all the night."

"Had she any money?"

"Yes," I replied, answering for her, "I paid her for everything, andthe eating was the worst I ever tried."

There was a general smile at this, and some murmurs of "She's not socrazy on the food question."

"Poor child," said Judge Duffy, "she is well dressed, and a lady. HerEnglish is perfect, and I would stake everything on her being a good girl.I am positive she is somebody's darling."

At this announcement everybody laughed, and I put my handkerchief overmy face and endeavored to choke the laughter that threatened to spoil myplans, in despite of my resolutions.

"I mean she is some woman's darling," hastily amended the judge. "Iam sure some one is searching for her. Poor girl, I will be good to her,for she looks like my sister, who is dead."

There was a hush for a moment after this announcement, and the officersglanced at me more kindly, while I silently blessed the kind-hearted judge,and hoped that any poor creatures who might be afflicted as I pretendedto be should have as kindly a man to deal with as Judge Duffy.

"I wish the reporters were here," he said at last. "They would be ableto find out something about her."

I got very much frightened at this, for if there is any one who canferret out a mystery it is a reporter. I felt that I would rather facea mass of expert doctors, policemen, and detectives than two bright specimensof my craft, so I said:

"I don't see why all this is needed to help me find my trunks. Thesem*n are impudent, and I do not want to be stared at. I will go away. Idon't want to stay here."

So saying, I pulled down my veil and secretly hoped the reporters wouldbe detained elsewhere until I was sent to the asylum.

"I don't know what to do with the poor child," said the worried judge."She must be taken care of."

"Send her to the Island," suggested one of the officers.

"Oh, don't!" said Mrs. Stanard, in evident alarm. "Don't! She is a ladyand it would kill her to be put on the Island."

For once I felt like shaking the good woman. To think the Islandwas just the place I wanted to reach and here she was trying to keep mefrom going there! It was very kind of her, but rather provoking under thecirc*mstances.

"There has been some foul work here," said the judge. "I believe thischild has been drugged and brought to this city. Make out the papers andwe will send her to Bellevue for examination. Probably in a few days theeffect of the drug will pass off and she will be able to tell us a storythat will be startling. If the reporters would only come!"

I dreaded them, so I said something about not wishing to stay thereany longer to be gazed at. Judge Duffy then told Policeman Bockert to takeme to the back office. After we were seated there Judge Duffy came in andasked me if my home was in Cuba.

"Yes," I replied, with a smile. "How did you know?"

"Oh, I knew it, my dear. Now, tell me were was it? In what part of Cuba?"

"On the hacienda," I replied.

"Ah," said the judge, "on a farm. Do you remember Havana?"

"Si, senor," I answered; "it is near home. How did you know?"

"Oh, I knew all about it. Now, won't you tell me the name of your home?"he asked, persuasively.

"That's what I forget," I answered, sadly. "I have a headache all thetime, and it makes me forget things. I don't want them to trouble me. Everybodyis asking me questions, and it makes my head worse," and in truth it did.

"Well, no one shall trouble you any more. Sit down here and rest awhile,"and the genial judge left me alone with Mrs. Stanard.

Just then an officer came in with a reporter. I was so frightened, andthought I would be recognized as a journalist, so I turned my head awayand said, "I don't want to see any reporters; I will not see any; the judgesaid I was not to be troubled."

"Well, there is no insanity in that," said the man who had brought thereporter, and together they left the room. Once again I had a fit of fear.Had I gone too far in not wanting to see a reporter, and was my sanitydetected? If I had given the impression that I was sane, I was determinedto undo it, so I jumped up and ran back and forward through the office,Mrs. Stanard clinging terrified to my arm.

"I won't stay here; I want mytrunks! Why do they bother me with so many people?" and thus I kept onuntil the ambulance surgeon came in, accompanied by the judge.

CHAPTER V.
PRONOUNCED INSANE.

"HERE is a poor girl who has been drugged," explained the judge. "Shelooks like my sister, and any one can see she is a good girl. I am interestedin the child, and I would do as much for her as if she were my own. I wantyou to be kind to her," he said to the ambulance surgeon. Then, turningto Mrs. Stanard, he asked her if she could not keep me for a few days untilmy case was inquired into. Fortunately, she said she could not, becauseall the women at the Home were afraid of me, and would leave if I werekept there. I was very much afraid she would keep me if the pay was assuredher, and so I said something about the bad cooking and that I did not intendto go back to the Home. Then came the examination; the doctor looked cleverand I had not one hope of deceiving him, but I determined to keep up thefarce.

"Put out your tongue," he ordered, briskly.

I gave an inward chuckle at the thought.

"Put out your tongue when I tell you," he said.

"I don't want to," I answered, truthfully enough.

"You must. You are sick, and I am a doctor."

"I am not sick and never was. I only want my trunks."

But I put out my tongue, which he looked at in a sagacious manner. Thenhe felt my pulse and listened to the beating of my heart. I had not theleast idea how the heart of an insane person beat, so I held my breathall the while he listened, until, when he quit, I had to give a gasp toregain it. Then he tried the effect of the light on the pupils of my eyes.Holding his hand within a half inch of my face, he told me to look at it,then, jerking it hastily away, he would examine my eyes. I was puzzledto know what insanity was like in the eye, so I thought the best thingunder the circ*mstances was to stare. This I did. I held my eyes rivetedunblinkingly upon his hand, and when he removed it I exerted all my strengthto still keep my eyes from blinking.

"What drugs have you been taking?" he then asked me.

"Drugs!" I repeated, wonderingly. "I do not know what drugs are."

"The pupils of her eyes have been enlarged ever since she came to theHome. They have not changed once," explained Mrs. Stanard. I wondered howshe knew whether they had or not, but I kept quiet.

"I believe she has been using belladonna," said the doctor, and forthe first time I was thankful that I was a little near-sighted, which ofcourse answers for the enlargement of the pupils. I thought I might aswell be truthful when I could without injuring my case, so I told him Iwas near-sighted, that I was not in the least ill, had never been sick,and that no one had a right to detain me when I wanted to find my trunks.I wanted to go home. He wrote a lot of things in a long, slender book,and then said he was going to take me home. The judge told him to takeme and to be kind to me, and to tell the people at the hospital to be kindto me, and to do all they could for me. If we only had more such men asJudge Duffy, the poor unfortunates would not find life all darkness.

I began to have more confidence in my own ability now, since one judge,one doctor, and a mass of people had pronounced me insane, and I put onmy veil quite gladly when I was told that I was to be taken in a carriage,and that afterward I could go home. "I am so glad to go with you," I said,and I meant it. I was very glad indeed. Once more, guarded by PolicemanBrockert, I walked through the little, crowded courtroom. I felt quiteproud of myself as I went out a side door into an alleyway, where the ambulancewas waiting. Near the closed and barred gates was a small office occupiedby several men and large books. We all went in there, and when they beganto ask me questions the doctor interposed and said he had all the papers,and that it was useless to ask me anything further, because I was unableto answer questions. This was a great relief to me, for my nerves werealready feeling the strain. A rough-looking man wanted to put me into theambulance, but I refused his aid so decidedly that the doctor and policemantold him to desist, and they performed that gallant office themselves.I did not enter the ambulance without protest. I made the remark that Ihad never seen a carriage of that make before, and that I did not wantto ride in it, but after awhile I let them persuade me, as I had rightalong intended to do.

I shall never forget that ride. After I was put in flat on the yellowblanket, the doctor got in and sat near the door. The large gates wereswung open, and the curious crowd which had collected swayed back to makeway for the ambulance as it backed out. How they tried to get a glimpseat the supposed crazy girl! The doctor saw that I did not like the peoplegazing at me, and considerately put down the curtains, after asking mywishes in regard to it. Still that did not keep the people away. The childrenraced after us, yelling all sorts of slang expressions, and trying to geta peep under the curtains. It was quite an interesting drive, but I mustsay that it was an excruciatingly rough one. I held on, only there wasnot much to hold on to, and the driver drove as if he feared some one wouldcatch up with us.

CHAPTER VI.
IN BELLEVUE HOSPITAL.

AT last Bellevue was reached, the third station on my way to the island.I had passed through successfully the ordeals at the home and at EssexMarket Police Court, and now felt confident that I should not fail. Theambulance stopped with a sudden jerk and the doctor jumped out. "How manyhave you?" I heard some one inquire. "Only one, for the pavilion," wasthe reply. A rough-looking man came forward, and catching hold of me attemptedto drag me out as if I had the strength of an elephant and would resist.The doctor, seeing my look of disgust, ordered him to leave me alone, sayingthat he would take charge of me himself. He then lifted me carefully outand I walked with the grace of a queen past the crowd that had gatheredcurious to see the new unfortunate. Together with the doctor I entereda small dark office, where there were several men. The one behind the deskopened a book and began on the long string of questions which had beenasked me so often.

I refused to answer, and the doctor told him it was not necessary totrouble me further, as he had all the papers made out, and I was too insaneto be able to tell anything that would be of consequence. I felt relievedthat it was so easy here, as, though still undaunted, I had begun to feelfaint for want of food. The order was then given to take me to the insanepavilion, and a muscular man came forward and caught me so tightly by thearm that a pain ran clear through me. It made me angry, and for a momentI forgot my role as I turned to him and said:

"How dare you touch me?" At this he loosened his hold somewhat, andI shook him off with more strength than I thought I possessed.

"I will go with no one but this man," I said, pointing to the ambulance-surgeon."The judge said that he was to take care of me, and I will go with no oneelse."

At this the surgeon said that he would take me, and so we went arm inarm, following the man who had at first been so rough with me. We passedthrough the well-cared-for grounds and finally reached the insane ward.A white-capped nurse was there to receive me.

CHAPTER VII.
THE GOAL IN SIGHT.

AT 6 o'clock on Sunday morning, Sept. 25, the nurses pulled the coveringfrom my bed. "Come, it's time for you to get out of bed," they said, andopened the window and let in the cold breeze. My clothing was then returnedto me. After dressing I was shown to a washstand, where all the other patientswere trying to rid their faces of all traces of sleep. At 7 o'clock wewere given some horrible mess, which Mary told us was chicken broth. Thecold, from which we had suffered enough the day previous, was bitter, andwhen I complained to the nurse she said it was one of the rules of theinstitution not to turn the heat on until October, and so we would haveto endure it, as the steam-pipes had not even been put in order. The nightnurses then, arming themselves with scissors, began to play manicure onthe patients. They cut my nails to the quick, as they did those of severalof the other patients. Shortly after this a handsome young doctor madehis appearance and I was conducted into the sitting-room.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Nellie Moreno," I replied.

"Then why did you give the name of Brown?" he asked. "What is wrongwith you?"

"Nothing. I did not want to come here, but they brought me. I want togo away. Won't you let me out?"

"If I take you out will you stay with me? Won't you run away from mewhen you get on the street?"

"I can't promise that I will not," I answered, with a smile and a sigh,for he was handsome.

He asked me many other questions. Did I ever see faces on the wall?Did I ever hear voices around? I answered him to the best of my ability.

"Do you ever hear voices at night?" he asked.

"Yes, there is so much talking I cannot sleep."

"I thought so," he said to himself. Then turning to me, he asked: "Whatdo these voices say?"

"Well, I do not listen to them always. But sometimes, very often, theytalk about Nellie Brown, and then on other subjects that do not interestme half so much," I answered, truthfully.

"That will do," he said to Miss Scott, who was just on the outside.

"Can I go away?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, with a satisfied laugh, "we'll soon send you away."

"It is so very cold here, I want to go out," I said.

"That's true," he said to Miss Scott. "The cold is almost unbearablein here, and you will have some cases of pneumonia if you are not careful."

With this I was led away and another patient was taken in. I sat rightoutside the door and waited to hear how he would test the sanity of theother patients. With little variation the examination was exactly the sameas mine. All the patients were asked if they saw faces on the wall, heardvoices, and what they said. I might also add each patient denied any suchpeculiar freaks of sight and hearing. At 10 o'clock we were given a cupof unsalted beef tea; at noon a bit of cold meat and a potatoe, at 3 o'clocka cup of oatmeal gruel and at 5.30 a cup of tea and a slice of unbutteredbread. We were all cold and hungry. After the physician left we were givenshawls and told to walk up and down the halls in order to get warm. Duringthe day the pavilion was visited by a number of people who were curiousto see the crazy girl from Cuba. I kept my head covered, on the plea ofbeing cold, for fear some of the reporters would recognize me. Some ofthe visitors were apparently in search of a missing girl, for I was madetake down the shawl repeatedly, and after they looked at me they wouldsay, "I don't know her," "or [sic], "she is not the one," for which I wassecretly thankful. Warden O'Rourke visited me, and tried his arts on anexamination. Then he brought some well-dressed women and some gentlemenat different times to have a glance at the mysterious Nellie Brown.

The reporters were the most troublesome. Such a number of them! Andthey were all so bright and clever that I was terribly frightened lestthey should see that I was sane. They were very kind and nice to me, andvery gentle in all their questionings. My late visitor the night previouscame to the window while some reporters were interviewing me in the sitting-room,and told the nurse to allow them to see me, as they would be of assistancein finding some clew as to my identity.

In the afternoon Dr. Field came and examined me. He asked me only afew questions, and one that had no bearing on such a case. The chief questionwas of my home and friends, and if I had any lovers or had ever been married.Then he made me stretch out my arms and move my fingers, which I did withoutthe least hesitation, yet I heard him say my case was hopeless. The otherpatients were asked the same questions.

As the doctor was about to leave the pavilion Miss Tillie Mayard discoveredthat she was in an insane ward. She went to Dr. Field and asked him whyshe had been sent there.

"Have you just found out you are in an insane asylum?" asked the doctor.

"Yes; my friends said they were sending me to a convalescent ward tobe treated for nervous debility, from which I am suffering since my illness.I want to get out of this place immediately."

"Well, you won't get out in a hurry," he said, with a quick laugh.

"If you know anything at all," she responded, "you should be able totell that I am perfectly sane. Why don't you test me?"

"We know all we want to on that score," said the doctor, and he leftthe poor girl condemned to an insane asylum, probably for life, withoutgiving her one feeble chance to prove her sanity.

Sunday night was but a repetition of Saturday. All night long we werekept awake by the talk of the nurses and their heavy walking through theuncarpeted halls. On Monday morning we were told that we should be takenaway at 1.30. The nurses questioned me unceasingly about my home, and allseemed to have an idea that I had a lover who had cast me forth on theworld and wrecked my brain. The morning brought many reporters. How untiringthey are in their efforts to get something new. Miss Scott refused to allowme to be seen, however, and for this I was thankful. Had they been givenfree access to me, I should probably not have been a mystery long, formany of them knew me by sight. Warden O'Rourke came for a final visit andhad a short conversation with me. He wrote his name in my notebook, sayingto the nurse that I would forget all about it in an hour. I smiled andthought I wasn't sure of that. Other people called to see me, but noneknew me or could give any information about me.

Noon came. I grew nervous as the time approached to leave for the Island.I dreaded every new arrival, fearful that my secret would be discoveredat the last moment. Then I was given a shawl and my hat and gloves. I couldhardly put them on, my nerves were so unstrung. At last the attendant arrived,and I bade good-bye to Mary as I slipped "a few pennies" into her hand."God bless you," she said; "I shall pray for you. Cheer up, dearie. Youare young, and will get over this." I told her I hoped so, and then I saidgood-bye to Miss Scott in Spanish. The rough-looking attendant twistedhis arms around mine, and half-led, half-dragged me to an ambulance. Acrowd of the students had assembled, and they watched us curiously. I putthe shawl over my face, and sank thankfully into the wagon. Miss Neville,Miss Mayard, Mrs. Fox, and Mrs. Schanz were all put in after me, one ata time. A man got in with us, the doors were locked, and we were drivenout of the gates in great style on toward the Insane Asylum and victory!The patients made no move to escape. The odor of the male attendant's breathwas enough to make one's head swim.

When we reached the wharf such a mob of people crowded around the wagonthat the police were called to put them away, so that we could reach theboat. I was the last of the procession. I was escorted down the plank,the fresh breeze blowing the attendants' whisky breath into my face untilI staggered. I was taken into a dirty cabin, where I found my companionsseated on a narrow bench. The small windows were closed, and, with thesmell of the filthy room, the air was stifling. At one end of the cabinwas a small bunk in such a condition that I had to hold my nose when Iwent near it. A sick girl was put on it. An old woman, with an enormousbonnet and a dirty basket filled with chunks of bread and bits of scrapmeat, completed our company. The door was guarded by two female attendants.One was clad in a dress made of bed-ticking and the other was dressed withsome attempt at style. They were coarse, massive women, and expectoratedtobacco juice about on the floor in a manner more skillful than charming.One of these fearful creatures seemed to have much faith in the power ofthe glance on insane people, for, when any one of us would move or go tolook out of the high window she would say "Sit down," and would lower herbrows and glare in a way that was simply terrifying. While guarding thedoor they talked with some men on the outside. They discussed the numberof patients and then their own affairs in a manner neither edifying norrefined.

The boat stopped and the old woman and the sick girl were taken off.The rest of us were told to sit still. At the next stop my companions weretaken off, one at a time. I was last, and it seemed to require a man anda woman to lead me up the plank to reach the shore. An ambulance was standingthere, and in it were the four other patients.

"What is this place?" I asked of the man, who had his fingers sunk intothe flesh of my arm.

"Blackwell's Island, an insane place, where you'll never get out of."

With this I was shoved into the ambulance, the springboard was put up,an officer and a mail-carrier jumped on behind, and I was swiftly drivento the Insane Asylum on Blackwell's Island.

CHAPTER VIII.
INSIDE THE MADHOUSE.

AS the wagon was rapidly driven through the beautiful lawns up to theasylum my feelings of satisfaction at having attained the object of mywork were greatly dampened by the look of distress on the faces of my companions.Poor women, they had no hopes of a speedy delivery. They were being drivento a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life.In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows thanto this tomb of living horrors! On the wagon sped, and I, as well as mycomrades, gave a despairing farewell glance at freedom as we came in sightof the long stone buildings. We passed one low building, and the stenchwas so horrible that I was compelled to hold my breath, and I mentallydecided that it was the kitchen. I afterward found I was correct in mysurmise, and smiled at the signboard at the end of the walk: "Visitorsare not allowed on this road." I don't think the sign would be necessaryif they once tried the road, especially on a warm day.

The wagon stopped, and the nurse and officer in charge told us to getout. The nurse added: "Thank God! they came quietly." We obeyed ordersto go ahead up a flight of narrow, stone steps, which had evidently beenbuilt for the accommodation of people who climb stairs three at a time.I wondered if my companions knew where we were, so I said to Miss TillieMayard:

"Where are we?"

"At the Blackwell's Island Lunatic Asylum," she answered, sadly.

"Are you crazy?" I asked.

"No," she replied; "but as we have been sent here we will have to bequiet until we find some means of escape. They will be few, though, ifall the doctors, as Dr. Field, refuse to listen to me or give me a chanceto prove my sanity." We were ushered into a narrow vestibule, and the doorwas locked behind us.

In spite of the knowledge of my sanity and the assurance that I wouldbe released in a few days, my heart gave a sharp twinge. Pronounced insaneby four expert doctors and shut up behind the unmerciful bolts and barsof a madhouse! Not to be confined alone, but to be a companion, day andnight, of senseless, chattering lunatics; to sleep with them, to eat withthem, to be considered one of them, was an uncomfortable position. Timidlywe followed the nurse up the long uncarpeted hall to a room filled by so-calledcrazy women. We were told to sit down, and some of the patients kindlymade room for us. They looked at us curiously, and one came up to me andasked:

"Who sent you here?"

"The doctors," I answered.

"What for?" she persisted.

"Well, they say I am insane," I admitted.

"Insane!" she repeated, incredulously. "It cannot be seen in your face."

This woman was too clever, I concluded, and was glad to answer the roughlygiven orders to follow the nurse to see the doctor. This nurse, Miss Grupe,by the way, had a nice German face, and if I had not detected certain hardlines about the mouth I might have expected, as did my companions, to receivebut kindness from her. She left us in a small waiting-room at the end ofthe hall, and left us alone while she went into a small office openinginto the sitting or receiving-room.

"I like to go down in the wagon," she said to the invisible party onthe inside. "It helps to break up the day." He answered her that the openair improved her looks, and she again appeared before us all smiles andsimpers.

"Come here, Tillie Mayard," she said. Miss Mayard obeyed, and, thoughI could not see into the office, I could hear her gently but firmly pleadingher case. All her remarks were as rational as any I ever heard, and I thoughtno good physician could help but be impressed with her story. She toldof her recent illness, that she was suffering from nervous debility. Shebegged that they try all their tests for insanity, if they had any, andgive her justice. Poor girl, how my heart ached for her! I determined thenand there that I would try by every means to make my mission of benefitto my suffering sisters; that I would show how they are committed withoutample trial. Without one word of sympathy or encouragement she was broughtback to where we sat.

Mrs. Louise Schanz was taken into the presence of Dr. Kinier, the medicalman.

"Your name?" he asked, loudly. She answered in German, saying she didnot speak English nor could she understand it. However, when he said Mrs.Louise Schanz, she said "Yah, yah." Then he tried other questions, andwhen he found she could not understand one world of English, he said toMiss Grupe:

"You are German; speak to her for me."

Miss Grupe proved to be one of those people who are ashamed of theirnationality, and she refused, saying she could understand but few worldsof her mother tongue.

"You know you speak German. Ask this woman what her husband does," andthey both laughed as if they were enjoying a joke.

"I can't speak but a few words," she protested, but at last she managedto ascertain the occupation of Mr. Schanz.

"Now, what was the use of lying to me?" asked the doctor, with a laughwhich dispelled the rudeness.

"I can't speak any more," she said, and she did not.

Thus was Mrs. Louise Schanz consigned to the asylum without a chanceof making herself understood. Can such carelessness be excused, I wonder,when it is so easy to get an interpreter? If the confinement was but fora few days one might question the necessity. But here was a woman takenwithout her own consent from the free world to an asylum and there givenno chance to prove her sanity. Confined most probably for life behind asylumbars, without even being told in her language the why and wherefore. Comparethis with a criminal, who is given every chance to prove his innocence.Who would not rather be a murderer and take the chance for life than bedeclared insane, without hope of escape? Mrs. Schanz begged in German toknow where she was, and pleaded for liberty. Her voice broken by sobs,she was led unheard out to us.

Mrs. Fox was then put through this weak, trifling examination and broughtfrom the office, convicted. Miss Annie Neville took her turn, and I wasagain left to the last. I had by this time determined to act as I do whenfree, except that I would refuse to tell who I was or where my home was.

CHAPTER IX.
AN EXPERT(?) AT WORK.

"NELLIE BROWN, the doctor wants you," said MissGrupe. I went in and was told to sit down opposite Dr. Kinier atthe desk.

"What is your name?" he asked, without looking up.

"Nellie Brown," I replied easily.

"Where is your home?" writing what I had said downin a large book.

"In Cuba."

"Oh!" he ejacul*ted, with sudden understanding–then, addressing the nurse:

"Did you see anything in the papers about her?"

"Yes," she replied, "I saw a long account ofthis girl in the Sun on Sunday." Then the doctorsaid:

"Keep her here until I go to the office and see thenotice again."

He left us, and I was relieved of my hat and shawl. On hisreturn, he said he had been unable to find the paper, but herelated the story of my debut, as he had read it, to thenurse.

"What's the color of her eyes?"

Miss Grupe looked, and answered "gray," althougheverybody had always said my eyes were brown or hazel.

"What's your age?" he asked; and as I answered,"Nineteen last May," he turned to the nurse, and said,"When do you get your next pass?" This I ascertainedwas a leave of absence, or "a day off."

"Next Saturday," she said, with a laugh.

"You will go to town?" and they both laughed as sheanswered in the affirmative, and he said:

"Measure her." I was stood under a measure, and itwas brought down tightly on my head.

"What is it?" asked the doctor.

"Now you know I can't tell," she said.

"Yes, you can; go ahead. What height?"

"I don't know; there are some figures there, but I can'ttell."

"Yes, you can. Now look and tell me."

"I can't; do it yourself," and they laughed again asthe doctor left his place at the desk and came forward to see forhimself.

"Five feet five inches; don't you see?" he said,taking her hand and touching the figures.

By her voice I knew she did not understand yet, but that wasno concern of mine, as the doctor seemed to find a pleasure inaiding her. Then I was put on the scales, and she worked arounduntil she got them to balance.

"How much?" asked the doctor, having resumed hisposition at the desk.

"I don't know. You will have to see for yourself,"she replied, calling him by his Christian name, which I haveforgotten. He turned and also addressing her by her baptismalname, he said:

"You are getting too fresh!" and they both laughed.I then told the weight–112 pounds–to the nurse, and she inturn told the doctor.

"What time are you going to supper?" he asked, andshe told him. He gave the nurse more attention than he did me,and asked her six questions to every one of me. Then he wrote myfate in the book before him. I said, "I am not sick and I donot want to stay here. No one has a right to shut me up in thismanner." He took no notice of my remarks, and havingcompleted his writings, as well as his talk with the nurse forthe moment, he said that would do, and with my companions, I wentback to the sitting-room.

"You play the piano?" they asked.

"Oh, yes; ever since I was a child," I replied.

Then they insisted that I should play, and they seated me on awooden chair before an old-fashioned square. I struck a fewnotes, and the untuned response sent a grinding chill through me.

"How horrible," I exclaimed, turning to a nurse,Miss McCarten, who stood at my side. "I never touched apiano as much out of tune."

"It's a pity of you," she said, spitefully;"we'll have to get one made to order for you."

I began to play the variations of "Home Sweet Home."The talking ceased and every patient sat silent, while my coldfingers moved slowly and stiffly over the keyboard. I finished inan aimless fashion and refused all requests to play more. Notseeing an available place to sit, I still occupied the chair inthe front of the piano while I "sized up" mysurroundings.

It was a long, bare room, with bare yellow benches encirclingit. These benches, which were perfectly straight, and just asuncomfortable, would hold five people, although in almost everyinstance six were crowded on them. Barred windows, built aboutfive feet from the floor, faced the two double doors which ledinto the hall. The bare white walls were somewhat relieved bythree lithographs, one of Fritz Emmet and the others of negrominstrels. In the center of the room was a large table coveredwith a white bed-spread, and around it sat the nurses. Everythingwas spotlessly clean and I thought what good workers the nursesmust be to keep such order. In a few days after how I laughed atmy own stupidity to think the nurses would work. When they foundI would not play any more, Miss McCarten came up to me saying,roughly:

"Get away from here," and closed the piano with abang.

"Brown, come here," was the next order I got from arough, red-faced woman at the table. "What have youon?"

"My clothing," I replied.

She lifted my dress and skirts and wrote down one pair shoes,one pair stockings, one cloth dress, one straw sailor hat, and soon.

CHAPTER X.
MY FIRST SUPPER.

THIS examination over, we heard some one yell, "Go outinto the hall." One of the patients kindly explained thatthis was an invitation to supper. We late comers tried to keeptogether, so we entered the hall and stood at the door where allthe women had crowded. How we shivered as we stood there! Thewindows were open and the draught went whizzing through the hall.The patients looked blue with cold, and the minutes stretchedinto a quarter of an hour. At last one of the nurses went forwardand unlocked a door, through which we all crowded to a landing ofthe stairway. Here again came a long halt directly before an openwindow.

"How very imprudent for the attendants to keep thesethinly clad women standing here in the cold," said MissNeville.

I looked at the poor crazy captives shivering, and added,emphatically, "It's horribly brutal." While they stoodthere I thought I would not relish supper that night. They lookedso lost and hopeless. Some were chattering nonsense to invisiblepersons, others were laughing or crying aimlessly, and one old,gray-haired woman was nudging me, and, with winks and sagenoddings of the head and pitiful uplifting of the eyes and hands,was assuring me that I must not mind the poor creatures, as theywere all mad. "Stop at the heater," was then ordered,"and get in line, two by two." "Mary, get acompanion." "How many times must I tell you to keep inline?" "Stand still," and, as the orders wereissued, a shove and a push were administered, and often a slap onthe ears. After this third and final halt, we were marched into along, narrow dining-room, where a rush was made for the table.

The table reached the length of the room and was uncovered anduninviting. Long benches without backs were put for the patientsto sit on, and over these they had to crawl in order to face thetable. Placed closed together all along the table were largedressing-bowls filled with a pinkish-looking stuff which thepatients called tea. By each bowl was laid a piece of bread, cutthick and buttered. A small saucer containing five prunesaccompanied the bread. One fat woman made a rush, and jerking upseveral saucers from those around her emptied their contents intoher own saucer. Then while holding to her own bowl she lifted upanother and drained its contents at one gulp. This she did to asecond bowl in shorter time than it takes to tell it. Indeed, Iwas so amused at her successful grabbings that when I looked atmy own share the woman opposite, without so much as by yourleave, grabbed my bread and left me without any.

Another patient, seeing this, kindly offered me hers, but Ideclined with thanks and turned to the nurse and asked for more.As she flung a thick piece down on the table she made some remarkabout the fact that if I forgot where my home was I had notforgotten how to eat. I tried the bread, but the butter was sohorrible that one could not eat it. A blue-eyed German girl onthe opposite side of the table told me I could have breadunbuttered if I wished, and that very few were able to eat thebutter. I turned my attention to the prunes and found that veryfew of them would be sufficient. A patient near asked me to givethem to her. I did so. My bowl of tea was all that was left. Itasted, and one taste was enough. It had no sugar, and it tastedas if it had been made in copper. It was as weak as water. Thiswas also transferred to a hungrier patient, in spite of theprotest of Miss Neville.

"You must force the food down," she said, "elseyou will be sick, and who know but what, with these surroundings,you may go crazy. To have a good brain the stomach must be caredfor."

"It is impossible for me to eat that stuff," Ireplied, and, despite all her urging, I ate nothing that night.

It did not require much time for the patients to consume allthat was eatable on the table, and then we got our orders to formin line in the hall. When this was done the doors before us wereunlocked and we were ordered to proceed back to the sitting-room.Many of the patients crowded near us, and I was again urged toplay, both by them and by the nurses. To please the patients Ipromised to play and Miss Tillie Mayard was to sing. The firstthing she asked me to play was "Rock-a-bye Baby," and Idid so. She sang it beautifully.

CHAPTER XI.
IN THE BATH.

A FEW more songs and we were told to go with Miss Grupe. We were takeninto a cold, wet bathroom, and I was ordered to undress. Did I protest?Well, I never grew so earnest in my life as when I tried to beg off. Theysaid if I did not they would use force and that it would not be very gentle.At this I noticed one of the craziest women in the ward standing by thefilled bathtub with a large, discolored rag in her hands. She was chatteringaway to herself and chuckling in a manner which seemed to me fiendish.I knew now what was to be done with me. I shivered. They began to undressme, and one by one they pulled off my clothes. At last everything was goneexcepting one garment. "I will not remove it," I said vehemently, but theytook it off. I gave one glance at the group of patients gathered at thedoor watching the scene, and I jumped into the bathtub with more energythan grace.

The water was ice-cold, and I again began to protest. How useless itall was! I begged, at least, that the patients be made to go away, butwas ordered to shut up. The crazy woman began to scrub me. I can find noother word that will express it but scrubbing. From a small tin pan shetook some soft soap and rubbed it all over me, even all over my face andmy pretty hair. I was at last past seeing or speaking, although I had beggedthat my hair be left untouched. Rub, rub, rub, went the old woman, chatteringto herself. My teeth chattered and my limbs were goose-fleshed and bluewith cold. Suddenly I got, one after the other, three buckets of waterover my head–ice-cold water, too–into my eyes, my ears, my nose andmy mouth. I think I experienced some of the sensations of a drowning personas they dragged me, gasping, shivering and quaking, from the tub. For onceI did look insane. I caught a glance of the indescribable look on the facesof my companions, who had witnessed my fate and knew theirs was surelyfollowing. Unable to control myself at the absurd picture I presented,I burst into roars of laughter. They put me, dripping wet, into a shortcanton flannel slip, labeled across the extreme end in large black letters,"Lunatic Asylum, B. I., H. 6." The letters meant Blackwell's Island, Hall6.

By this time Miss Mayard had been undressed, and, much as I hated myrecent bath, I would have taken another if by it I could have saved herthe experience. Imagine plunging that sick girl into a cold bath when itmade me, who have never been ill, shake as if with ague. I heard her explainto Miss Grupe that her head was still sore from her illness. Her hair wasshort and had mostly come out, and she asked that the crazy woman be madeto rub more gently, but Miss Grupe said:

"There isn't much fear of hurting you. Shut up, or you'll get it worse."Miss Mayard did shut up, and that was my last look at her for the night.

I was hurried into a room where there were six beds, and had been putinto bed when some one came along and jerked me out again, saying:

"Nellie Brown has to be put in a room alone to-night, for I supposeshe's noisy."

I was taken to room 28 and left to try and make an impression on thebed. It was an impossible task. The bed had been made high in the centerand sloping on either side. At the first touch my head flooded the pillowwith water, and my wet slip transferred some of its dampness to the sheet.When Miss Grupe came in I asked if I could not have a night-gown.

CHAPTER XII.
PROMENADING WITH LUNATICS.

I SHALL never forget my first walk. When all the patients had donnedthe white straw hats, such as bathers wear at Coney Island, I could notbut laugh at their comical appearances. I could not distinguish one womanfrom another. I lost Miss Neville, and had to take my hat off and searchfor her. When we met we put our hats on and laughed at one another. Twoby two we formed in line, and guarded by the attendants we went out a backway on to the walks.

We had not gone many paces when I saw, proceeding from every walk, longlines of women guarded by nurses. How many there were! Every way I lookedI could see them in the queer dresses, comical straw hats and shawls, marchingslowly around. I eagerly watched the passing lines and a thrill of horrorcrept over me at the sight. Vacant eyes and meaningless faces, and theirtongues uttered meaningless nonsense. One crowd passed and I noted by noseas well as eyes, that they were fearfully dirty.

"Who are they?" I asked of a patient near me.

"They are considered the most violent on the island," she replied. "Theyare from the Lodge, the first building with the high steps." Some wereyelling, some were cursing, others were singing or praying or preaching,as the fancy struck them, and they made up the most miserable collectionof humanity I had ever seen. As the din of their passing faded in the distancethere came another sight I can never forget:

A long cable rope fastened to wide leather belts, and these belts lockedaround the waists of fifty-two women. At the end of the rope was a heavyiron cart, and in it two women–one nursing a sore foot, another screamingat some nurse, saying: "You beat me and I shall not forget it. You wantto kill me," and then she would sob and cry. The women "on the rope," asthe patients call it, were each busy on their individual freaks. Some wereyelling all the while. One who had blue eyes saw me look at her, and sheturned as far as she could, talking and smiling, with that terrible, horrifyinglook of absolute insanity stamped on her. The doctors might safely judgeon her case. The horror of that sight to one who had never been near aninsane 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 imaginethe sight? According to one of the physicians there are 1600 insane womenon Blackwell's Island.

Mad! what can be half so horrible? My heart thrilled with pity whenI looked on old, gray-haired women talking aimlessly to space. One womanhad 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 comfortto 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 isonly to look at. I saw some patients eagerly and caressingly lift a nutor a colored leaf that had fallen on the path. But they were not permittedto keep them. The nurses would always compel them to throw their littlebit of God's comfort away.

As I passed a low pavilion, where a crowd of helpless lunatics wereconfined, I read a motto on the wall, "While I live I hope." The absurdityof it struck me forcibly. I would have liked to put above the gates thatopen to the asylum, "He who enters here leaveth hope behind."

During the walk I was annoyed a great deal by nurses who had heard myromantic story calling to those in charge of us to ask which one I was.I was pointed out repeatedly.

It was not long until the dinner hour arrived and I was so hungry thatI felt I could eat anything. The same old story of standing for a halfand three-quarters of an hour in the hall was repeated before we got downto our dinners. The bowls in which we had had our tea were now filled withsoup, and on a plate was one cold boiled potato and a chunk of beef, whichon investigation, proved to be slightly spoiled. There were no knives orforks, and the patients looked fairly savage as they took the tough beefin their fingers and pulled in opposition to their teeth. Those toothlessor with poor teeth could not eat it. One tablespoon was given for thesoup, and a piece of bread was the final entree. Butter is never allowedat dinner nor coffee or tea. Miss Mayard could not eat, and I saw manyof the sick ones turn away in disgust. I was getting very weak from thewant of food and tried to eat a slice of bread. After the first few biteshunger asserted itself, and I was able to eat all but the crusts of theone 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 totell him of their sufferings. I asked some of them to tell how they weresuffering from the cold and insufficiency of clothing, but they repliedthat the nurse would beat them if they told.

I was never so tired as I grew sitting on those benches. Several ofthe patients would sit on one foot or sideways to make a change, but theywere always reproved and told to sit up straight. If they talked they werescolded and told to shut up; if they wanted to walk around in order totake the stiffness out of them, they were told to sit down and be still.What, excepting torture, would produce insanity quicker than this treatment?Here is a class of women sent to be cured. I would like the expert physicianswho are condemning me for my action, which has proven their ability, totake a perfectly sane and healthy woman, shut her up and make her sit from6 A. M. until 8 P. M. on straight-back benches, do not allow her to talkor move during these hours, give her no reading and let her know nothingof the world or its doings, give her bad food and harsh treatment, andsee how long it will take to make her insane. Two months would make hera mental and physical wreck.

I have described my first day in the asylum, and as my other nine wereexactly the same in the general run of things it would be tiresome to tellabout each. In giving this story I expect to be contradicted by many whoare exposed. I merely tell in common words, without exaggeration, of mylife in a mad-house for ten days. The eating was one of the most horriblethings. Excepting the first two days after I entered the asylum, therewas no salt for the food. The hungry and even famishing women made an attemptto eat the horrible messes. Mustard and vinegar were put on meat and insoup to give it a taste, but it only helped to make it worse. Even thatwas all consumed after two days, and the patients had to try to choke downfresh fish, just boiled in water, without salt, pepper or butter; mutton,beef and potatoes without the faintest seasoning. The most insane refusedto swallow the food and were threatened with punishment. In our short walkswe passed the kitchen were food was prepared for the nurses and doctors.There we got glimpses of melons and grapes and all kinds of fruits, beautifulwhite bread and nice meats, and the hungry feeling would be increased tenfold.I spoke to some of the physicians, but it had no effect, and when I wastaken away the food was yet unsalted.

My heart ached to see the sick patients grow sicker over the table.I saw Miss Tillie Mayard so suddenly overcome at a bite that she had torush from the dining-room and then got a scolding for doing so. When thepatients complained of the food they were told to shut up; that they wouldnot have as good if they were at home, and that it was too good for charitypatients.

A German girl, Louise–I have forgotten her last name–did not eatfor several days and at last one morning she was missing. From the conversationof the nurses I found she was suffering from a high fever. Poor thing!she told me she unceasingly prayed for death. I watched the nurses makea patient carry such food as the well ones were refusing up to Louise'sroom. Think of that stuff for a fever patient! Of course, she refused it.Then I saw a nurse, Miss McCarten, go to test her temperature, and shereturned with a report of it being some 150 degrees. I smiled at the report,and Miss Grupe, seeing it, asked me how high my temperature had ever run.I refused to answer. Miss Grady then decided to try her ability. She returnedwith the report of 99 degrees.

Miss Tillie Mayard suffered more than any of us from the cold, and yetshe tried to follow my advice to be cheerful and try to keep up for a shorttime. Superintendent Dent brought in a man to see me. He felt my pulseand my head and examined my tongue. I told them how cold it was, and assuredthem that I did not need medical aid, but that Miss Mayard did, and theyshould transfer their attentions to her. They did not answer me, and Iwas pleased to see Miss Mayard leave her place and come forward to them.She spoke to the doctors and told them she was ill, but they paid no attentionto her. The nurses came and dragged her back to the bench, and after thedoctors left they said, "After awhile, when you see that the doctors willnot notice you, you will quit running up to them." Before the doctors leftme I heard one say–I cannot give it in his exact words–that my pulseand eyes were not that of an insane girl, but Superintendent Dent assuredhim that in cases such as mine such tests failed. After watching me forawhile he said my face was the brightest he had ever seen for a lunatic.The nurses had on heavy undergarments and coats, but they refused to giveus shawls.

Nearly all night long I listened to a woman cry about the cold and begfor God to let her die. Another one yelled "Murder!" at frequent intervalsand "Police!" at others until my flesh felt creepy.

The second morning, after we had begun our endless "set" for the day,two of the nurses, assisted by some patients, brought the woman in whohad begged the night previous for God to take her home. I was not surprisedat her prayer. She appeared easily seventy years old, and she was blind.Although the halls were freezing-cold, that old woman had no more clothingon than the rest of us, which I have described. When she was brought intothe sitting-room and placed on the hard bench, she cried:

"Oh, what are you doing with me? I am cold, so cold. Why can't I stayin bed or have a shawl?" and then she would get up and endeavor to feelher way to leave the room. Sometimes the attendants would jerk her backto the bench, and again they would let her walk and heartlessly laugh whenshe bumped against the table or the edge of the benches. At one time shesaid the heavy shoes which charity provides hurt her feet, and she tookthem off. The nurses made two patients put them on her again, and whenshe did it several times, and fought against having them on, I countedseven people at her at once trying to put the shoes on her. The old womanthen tried to lie down on the bench, but they pulled her up again. It soundedso pitiful to hear her cry:

"Oh, give me a pillow and pull the covers over me, I am so cold."

At this I saw Miss Grupe sit down on her and run her cold hands overthe old woman's face and down inside the neck of her dress. At the oldwoman's cries she laughed savagely, as did the other nurses, and repeatedher cruel action. That day the old woman was carried away to another ward.

CHAPTER XIII.
CHOKING AND BEATING PATIENTS.

MISS TILLIE MAYARD suffered greatly from cold. One morning she sat on the bench next to me and was livid with the cold. Her limbs shook and her teeth chattered. I spoke to the three attendants who sat with coats on at the table in the center of the floor.

"It is cruel to lock people up and then freeze them," I said. They replied she had on as much as any of the rest, and she would get no more. Just then Miss Mayard took a fit and every patient looked frightened. Miss Neville caught her in her arms and held her, although the nurses roughly said:

"Let her fall on the floor and it will teach her a lesson." Miss Neville told them what she thought of their actions, and then I got orders to make my appearance in the office.

Just as I reached there Superintendent Dent came to the door and I told him how we were suffering from the cold, and of Miss Mayard's condition. Doubtless, I spoke incoherently, for I told of the state of the food, the treatment of the nurses and their refusal to give more clothing, the condition of Miss Mayard, and the nurses telling us, because the asylum was a public institution we could not expect even kindness. Assuring him that I needed no medical aid, I told him to go to Miss Mayard. He did so. From Miss Neville and other patients I learned what transpired. Miss Mayard was still in the fit, and he caught her roughly between the eyebrows or thereabouts, and pinched until her face was crimson from the rush of blood to the head, and her senses returned. All day afterward she suffered from terrible headache, and from that on she grew worse.

Insane? Yes, insane; and as I watched the insanity slowly creep over the mind that had appeared to be all right I secretly cursed the doctors, the nurses and all public institutions. Some one may say that she was insane at some time previous to her consignment to the asylum. Then if she were, was this the proper place to send a woman just convalescing, to be given cold baths, deprived of sufficient clothing and fed with horrible food?

On this morning I had a long conversation with Dr. Ingram, the assistant superintendent of the asylum. I found that he was kind to the helpless in his charge. I began my old complaint of the cold, and he called Miss Grady to the office and ordered more clothing given the patients. Miss Grady said if I made a practice of telling it would be a serious thing for me, she warned me in time.

Many visitors looking for missing girls came to see me. Miss Grady yelled in the door from the hall one day:

"Nellie Brown, you're wanted."

I went to the sitting-room at the end of the hall, and there sat a gentleman who had known me intimately for years. I saw by the sudden blanching of his face and his inability to speak that the sight of me was wholly unexpected and had shocked him terribly. In an instant I determined, if he betrayed me as Nellie Bly, to say I had never seen him before. However, I had one card to play and I risked it. With Miss Grady within touching distance I whispered hurriedly to him, in language more expressive than elegant:

"Don't give me away."

I knew by the expression of his eye that he understood, so I said to Miss Grady:

"I do not know this man."

"Do you know her?" asked Miss Grady.

"No; this is not the young lady I came in search of," he replied, in a strained voice.

"If you do not know her you cannot stay here," she said, and she took him to the door. All at once a fear struck me that he would think I had been sent there through some mistake and would tell my friends and make an effort to have me released. So I waited until Miss Grady had the door unlocked. I knew that she would have to lock it before she could leave, and the time required to do so would give me opportunity to speak, so I called:

"One moment, senor." He returned to me and I asked aloud:

"Do you speak Spanish, senor?" and then whispered, "It's all right. I'm after an item. Keep still." "No," he said, with a peculiar emphasis, which I knew meant that he would keep my secret.

People in the world can never imagine the length of days to those in asylums. They seemed never ending, and we welcomed any event that might give us something to think about as well as talk of. There is nothing to read, and the only bit of talk that never wears out is conjuring up delicate food that they will get as soon as they get out. Anxiously the hour was watched for when the boat arrived to see if there were any new unfortunates to be added to our ranks. When they came and were ushered into the sitting-room the patients would express sympathy to one another for them and were anxious to show them little marks of attention. Hall 6 was the receiving hall, so that was how we saw all newcomers.

Soon after my advent a girl called Urena Little-Page was brought in. She was, as she had been born, silly, and her tender spot was, as with many sensible women, her age. She claimed eighteen, and would grow very angry if told to the contrary. The nurses were not long in finding this out, and then they teased her.

"Urena," said Miss Grady, "the doctors say that you are thirty-three instead of eighteen," and the other nurses laughed. They kept up this until the simple creature began to yell and cry, saying she wanted to go home and that everybody treated her badly. After they had gotten all the amusem*nt out of her they wanted and she was crying, they began to scold and tell her to keep quiet. She grew more hysterical every moment until they pounced upon her and slapped her face and knocked her head in a lively fashion. This made the poor creature cry the more, and so they choked her. Yes, actually choked her. Then they dragged her out to the closet, and I heard her terrified cries hush into smothered ones. After several hours' absence she returned to the sitting-room, and I plainly saw the marks of their fingers on her throat for the entire day.

This punishment seemed to awaken their desire to administer more. They returned to the sitting-room and caught hold of an old gray-haired woman whom I have heard addressed both as Mrs. Grady and Mrs. O'Keefe. She was insane, and she talked almost continually to herself and to those near her. She never spoke very loud, and at the time I speak of was sitting harmlessly chattering to herself. They grabbed her, and my heart ached as she cried:

"For God sake, ladies, don't let them beat me."

"Shut up, you hussy!" said Miss Grady as she caught the woman by her gray hair and dragged her shrieking and pleading from the room. She was also taken to the closet, and her cries grew lower and lower, and then ceased.

The nurses returned to the room and Miss Grady remarked that she had "settled the old fool for awhile." I told some of the physicians of the occurrence, but they did not pay any attention to it.

One of the characters in Hall 6 was Matilda, a little old German woman, who, I believe, went insane over the loss of money. She was small, and had a pretty pink complexion. She was not much trouble, except at times. She would take spells, when she would talk into the steam-heaters or get up on a chair and talk out of the windows. In these conversations she railed at the lawyers who had taken her property. The nurses seemed to find a great deal of amusem*nt in teasing the harmless old soul. One day I sat beside Miss Grady and Miss Grupe, and heard them tell her perfectly vile things to call Miss McCarten. After telling her to say these things they would send her to the other nurse, but Matilda proved that she, even in her state, had more sense than they.

"I cannot tell you. It is private," was all she would say. I saw Miss Grady, on a pretense of whispering to her, spit in her ear. Matilda quietly wiped her ear and said nothing.

CHAPTER XIV.
SOME UNFORTUNATE STORIES.

BY this time I had made the acquaintance of the greater number of the forty-five women in hall 6. Let me introduce a few. Louise, the pretty German girl who I have spoken of formerly as being sick with fever, had the delusion that the spirits of her dead parents were with her. "I have gotten many beatings from Miss Grady and her assistants," she said, "and I am unable to eat the horrible food they give us. I ought not to be compelled to freeze for want of proper clothing. Oh! I pray nightly that I may be taken to my papa and mamma. One night, when I was confined at Bellevue, Dr. Field came; I was in bed, and weary of the examination. At last I said: 'I am tired of this. I will talk no more.' 'Won't you?' he said, angrily. 'I'll see if I can't make you.' With this he laid his crutch on the side of the bed, and, getting up on it, he pinched me very severely in the ribs. I jumped up straight in bed, and said: 'What do you mean by this?' 'I want to teach you to obey when I speak to you,' he replied. If I could only die and go to papa!" When I left she was confined to bed with a fever, and maybe by this time she has her wish.

There is a Frenchwoman confined in hall 6, or was during my stay, whom I firmly believe to be perfectly sane. I watched her and talked with her every day, excepting the last three, and I was unable to find any delusion or mania in her. Her name is Josephine Despreau, if that is spelled correctly, and her husband and all her friends are in France. Josephine feels her position keenly. Her lips tremble, and she breaks down crying when she talks of her helpless condition. "How did you get here?" I asked.

"One morning as I was trying to get breakfast I grew deathly sick, and two officers were called in by the woman of the house, and I was taken to the station-house. I was unable to understand their proceedings, and they paid little attention to my story. Doings in this country were new to me, and before I realized it I was lodged as an insane woman in this asylum. When I first came I cried that I was here without hope of release, and for crying Miss Grady and her assistants choked me until they hurt my throat, for it has been sore ever since."

A pretty young Hebrew woman spoke so little English I could not get her story except as told by the nurses. They said her name is Sarah Fishbaum, and that her husband put her in the asylum because she had a fondness for other men than himself. Granting that Sarah was insane, and about men, let me tell you how the nurses tried to cure(?) her. They would call her up and say:

"Sarah, wouldn't you like to have a nice young man?"

"Oh, yes; a young man is all right," Sarah would reply in her few English words.

"Well, Sarah, wouldn't you like us to speak a good word to some of the doctors for you? Wouldn't you like to have one of the doctors?"

And then they would ask her which doctor she preferred, and advise her to make advances to him when he visited the hall, and so on.

I had been watching and talking with a fair-complexioned woman for several days, and I was at a loss to see why she had been sent there, she was so sane.

"Why did you come here?" I asked her one day, after we had indulged in a long conversation.

"I was sick," she replied.

"Are you sick mentally?" I urged.

"Oh, no; what gave you such an idea? I had been overworking myself, and I broke down. Having some family trouble, and being penniless and nowhere to go, I applied to the commissioners to be sent to the poorhouse until I would be able to go to work."

"But they do not send poor people here unless they are insane," I said. "Don't you know there are only insane women, or those supposed to be so, sent here?"

"I knew after I got here that the majority of these women were insane, but then I believed them when they told me this was the place they sent all the poor who applied for aid as I had done."

"How have you been treated?" I asked. "Well, so far I have escaped a beating, although I have been sickened at the sight of many and the recital of more. When I was brought here they went to give me a bath, and the very disease for which I needed doctoring and from which I was suffering made it necessary that I should not bathe. But they put me in, and my sufferings were increased greatly for weeks thereafter."

A Mrs. McCartney, whose husband is a tailor, seems perfectly rational and has not one fancy. Mary Hughes and Mrs. Louise Schanz showed no obvious traces of insanity.

One day two new-comers were added to our list. The one was an idiot, Carrie Glass, and the other was a nice-looking German girl–quite young, she seemed, and when she came in all the patients spoke of her nice appearance and apparent sanity. Her name was Margaret. She told me she had been a cook, and was extremely neat. One day, after she had scrubbed the kitchen floor, the chambermaids came down and deliberately soiled it. Her temper was aroused and she began to quarrel with them; an officer was called and she was taken to an asylum.

"How can they say I am insane, merely because I allowed my temper to run away with me?" she complained. "Other people are not shut up for crazy when they get angry. I suppose the only thing to do is to keep quiet and so avoid the beatings which I see others get. No one can say one word about me. I do everything I am told, and all the work they give me. I am obedient in every respect, and I do everything to prove to them that I am sane."

One day an insane woman was brought in. She was noisy, and Miss Grady gave her a beating and blacked her eye. When the doctors noticed it and asked if it was done before she came there the nurses said it was.

While I was in hall 6 I never heard the nurses address the patients except to scold or yell at them, unless it was to tease the. They spent much of their time gossiping about the physicians and about the other nurses in a manner that was not elevating. Miss Grady nearly always interspersed her conversation with profane language, and generally began her sentences by calling on the name of the Lord. The names she called the patients were of the lowest and most profane type. One evening she quarreled with another nurse while we were at supper about the bread, and when the nurse had gone out she called her bad names and made ugly remarks about her.

In the evenings a woman, whom I supposed to be head cook for the doctors, used to come up and bring raisins, grapes, apples, and crackers to the nurses. Imagine the feelings of the hungry patients as they sat and watched the nurses eat what was to them a dream of luxury.

One afternoon, Dr. Dent was talking to a patient, Mrs. Turney, about some trouble she had had with a nurse or matron. A short time after we were taken down to supper and this woman who had beaten Mrs. Turney, and of whom Dr. Dent spoke, was sitting at the door of our dining-room. Suddenly Mrs. Turney picked up her bowl of tea, and, rushing out of the door flung it at the woman who had beat her. There was some loud screaming and Mrs. Turney was returned to her place. The next day she was transferred to the "rope gang," which is supposed to be composed of the most dangerous and most suicidal women on the island.

At first I could not sleep and did not want to so long as I could hear anything new. The night nurses may have complained of the fact. At any rate one night they came in and tried to make me take a dose of some mixture out of a glass "to make me sleep," they said. I told them I would do nothing of the sort and they left me, I hoped, for the night. My hopes were vain, for in a few minutes they returned with a doctor, the same that received us on our arrival. He insisted that I take it, but I was determined not to lose my wits even for a few hours. When he saw that I was not to be coaxed he grew rather rough, and said he had wasted too much time with me already. That if I did not take it he would put it into my arm with a needle. It occurred to me that if he put it into my arm I could not get rid of it, but if I swallowed it there was one hope, so I said I would take it. I smelt it and it smelt like laudanum, and it was a horrible dose. No sooner had they left the room and locked me in than I tried so see how far down my throat my finger would go, and the chloral was allowed to try its effect elsewhere.

I want to say that the night nurse, Burns, in hall 6, seemed very kind and patient to the poor, afflicted people. The other nurses made several attempts to talk to me about lovers, and asked me if I would not like to have one. They did not find me very communicative on the–to them–popular subject.

Once a week the patients are given a bath, and that is the only time they see soap. A patient handed me a piece of soap one day about the size of a thimble, I considered it a great compliment in her wanting to be kind, but I thought she would appreciate the cheap soap more than I, so I thanked her but refused to take it. On bathing day the tub is filled with water, and the patients are washed, one after the other, without a change of water. This is done until the water is really thick, and then it is allowed to run out and the tub is refilled without being washed. The same towels are used on all the women, those with eruptions as well as those without. The healthy patients fight for a change of water, but they are compelled to submit to the dictates of the lazy, tyrannical nurses. The dresses are seldom changed oftener than once a month. If the patient has a visitor, I have seen the nurses hurry her out and change her dress before the visitor comes in. This keeps up the appearance of careful and good management.

The patients who are not able to take care of themselves get into beastly conditions, and the nurses never look after them, but order some of the patients to do so.

For five days we were compelled to sit in the room all day. I never put in such a long time. Every patient was stiff and sore and tired. We would get in little groups on benches and torture our stomachs by conjuring up thoughts of what we would eat first when we got out. If I had not known how hungry they were and the pitiful side of it, the conversation would have been very amusing. As it was it only made me sad. When the subject of eating, which seemed to be the favorite one, was worn out, they used to give their opinions of the institution and its management. The condemnation of the nurses and the eatables was unanimous.

As the days passed Miss Tillie Mayard's condition grew worse. She was continually cold and unable to eat of the food provided. Day after day she sang in order to try to maintain her memory, but at last the nurse made her stop it. I talked with her daily, and I grieved to find her grow worse so rapidly. At last she got a delusion. She thought that I was trying to pass myself off for her, and that all the people who called to see Nellie Brown were friends in search of her, but that I, by some means, was trying to deceive them into the belief that I was the girl. I tried to reason with her, but found it impossible, so I kept away from her as much as possible, lest my presence should make her worse and feed the fancy.

One of the patients, Mrs. Cotter, a pretty, delicate woman, one day thought she saw her husband coming up the walk. She left the line in which she was marching and ran to meet him. For this act she was sent to the Retreat. She afterward said:

"The remembrance of that is enough to make me mad. For crying the nurses beat me with a broom-handle and jumped on me, injuring me internally, so that I shall never get over it. Then they tied my hands and feet, and, throwing a sheet over my head, twisted it tightly around my throat, so I could not scream, and thus put me in a bathtub filled with cold water. They held me under until I gave up every hope and became senseless. At other times they took hold of my ears and beat my head on the floor and against the wall. Then they pulled out my hair by the roots, so that it will never grow in again."

Mrs. Cotter here showed me proofs of her story, the dent in the back of her head and the bare spots where the hair had been taken out by the handful. I give her story as plainly as possible: "My treatment was not as bad as I have seen others get in there, but it has ruined my health, and even if I do get out of here I will be a wreck. When my husband heard of the treatment given me he threatened to expose the place if I was not removed, so I was brought here. I am well mentally now. All that old fear has left me, and the doctor has promised to allow my husband to take me home."

I made the acquaintance of Bridget McGuinness, who seems to be sane at the present time. She said she was sent to Retreat 4, and put on the "rope gang." "The beating I got there were something dreadful. I was pulled around by the hair, held under the water until I strangled, and I was choked and kicked. The nurses would always keep a quiet patient stationed at the window to tell them when any of the doctors were approaching. It was hopeless to complain to the doctors, for they always said it was the imagination of our diseased brains, and besides we would get another beating for telling. They would hold patients under the water and threaten to leave them to die there if they did not promise not to tell the doctors. We would all promise, because we knew the doctors would not help us, and we would do anything to escape the punishment. After breaking a window I was transferred to the Lodge, the worst place on the island. It is dreadfully dirty in there, and the stench is awful. In the summer the flies swarm the place. The food is worse than we get in other wards and we are given only tin plates. Instead of the bars being on the outside, as in this ward, they are on the inside. There are many quiet patients there who have been there for years, but the nurses keep them to do the work. Among other beating I got there, the nurses jumped on me once and broke two of my ribs.

"While I was there a pretty young girl was brought in. She had been sick, and she fought against being put in that dirty place. One night the nurses took her and, after beating her, they held her naked in a cold bath, then they threw her on her bed. When morning came the girl was dead. The doctors said she died of convulsions, and that was all that was done about it.

"They inject so much morphine and chloral that the patients are made crazy. I have seen the patients wild for water from the effect of the drugs, and the nurses would refuse it to them. I have heard women beg for a whole night for one drop and it was not given them. I myself cried for water until my mouth was so parched and dry that I could not speak."

I saw the same thing myself in hall 7. The patients would beg for a drink before retiring, but the nurses–Miss Hart and the others–refused to unlock the bathroom that they might quench their thirst.

CHAPTER XV.
INCIDENTS OF ASYLUM LIFE.

THERE is little in the wards to help one pass the time. Allthe asylum clothing is made by the patients, but sewing does notemploy one's mind. After several months' confinement the thoughtsof the busy world grow faint, and all the poor prisoners can dois to sit and ponder over their hopeless fate. In the upper hallsa good view is obtained of the passing boats and New York. OftenI tried to picture to myself as I looked out between the bars tothe lights faintly glimmering in the city, what my feelings wouldbe if I had no one to obtain my release.

I have watched patients stand and gaze longingly toward thecity they in all likelihood will never enter again. It meansliberty and life; it seems so near, and yet heaven is not furtherfrom hell.

Do the women pine for home? Excepting the most violent cases,they are conscious that they are confined in an asylum. An onlydesire that never dies is the one for release, for home.

One poor girl used to tell me every morning, "I dreamedof my mother last night. I think she may come to-day and take mehome." That one thought, that longing, is always present,yet she has been confined some four years.

What a mysterious thing madness is. I have watched patientswhose lips are forever sealed in a perpetual silence. They live,breathe, eat; the human form is there, but that something, whichthe body can live without, but which cannot exist without thebody, was missing. I have wondered if behind those sealed lipsthere were dreams we ken not of, or if all was blank?

Still, as sad are those cases when the patients are alwaysconversing with invisible parties. I have seen them whollyunconscious of their surroundings and engrossed with an invisiblebeing. Yet, strange to say, that any command issued to them isalways obeyed, in about the same manner as a dog obeys hismaster. One of the most pitiful delusions of any of the patientswas that of a blue-eyed Irish girl, who believed she was foreverdamned because of one act in her life. Her horrible cry, morningand night, "I am damned for all eternity!" would strikehorror to my soul. Her agony seemed like a glimpse of theinferno.

After being transferred to hall 7 I was locked in a room everynight with six crazy women. Two of them seemed never to sleep,but spent the night in raving. One would get out of her bed andcreep around the room searching for some one she wanted to kill.I could not help but think how easy it would be for her to attackany of the other patients confined with her. It did not make thenight more comfortable.

One middle-aged woman, who used to sit always in the corner ofthe room, was very strangely affected. She had a piece ofnewspaper, and from it she continually read the most wonderfulthings I ever heard. I often sat close by her and listened.History and romance fell equally well from her lips.

I saw butone letter given a patient while I was there. It awakened a biginterest. Every patient seemed thirsty for a word from the world,and they crowded around the one who had been so fortunate andasked hundreds of questions.

Visitors make but little interest and a great deal of mirth.Miss Mattie Morgan, in hall 7, played for the entertainment ofsome visitors one day. They were close about her until onewhispered that she was a patient. "Crazy!" theywhispered, audibly, as they fell back and left her alone. She wasamused as well as indignant over the episode. Miss Mattie,assisted by several girls she has trained, makes the eveningspass very pleasantly in hall 7. They sing and dance. Often thedoctors come up and dance with the patients.

One day when we went down to dinner we heard a weak little cryin the basem*nt. Every one seemed to notice it, and it was notlong until we knew there was a baby down there. Yes, a baby.Think of it–a little, innocent babe born in such a chamber ofhorrors! I can imagine nothing more terrible.

A visitor who came one day brought in her arms her babe. Amother who had been separated from her five little children askedpermission to hold it. When the visitor wanted to leave, thewoman's grief was uncontrollable, as she begged to keep the babewhich she imagined was her own. It excited more patients than Ihad ever seen excited before at one time.

The only amusem*nt, if so it may be called, given the patientsoutside, is a ride once a week, if the weather permits, on the"merry-go-round." It is a change, and so they accept itwith some show of pleasure.

A scrub-brush factory, a mat factory, and the laundry, arewhere the mild patients work. They get no recompense for it, butthey get hungry over it.

CHAPTER XVI.
THE LAST GOOD-BYE.

THE day Pauline Moser was brought to the asylum we heard the most horriblescreams, and an Irish girl, only partly dressed, came staggering like adrunken person up the hall, yelling, "Hurrah! Three cheers! I have killedthe divil! Lucifer, Lucifer, Lucifer," and so on, over and over again.Then she would pull a handful of hair out, while she exultingly cried,"How I deceived the divils. They always said God made hell, but he didn't."Pauline helped the girl to make the place hideous by singing the most horriblesongs. After the Irish girl had been there an hour or so, Dr. Dent camein, and as he walked down the hall, Miss Grupe whispered to the dementedgirl, "Here is the devil coming, go for him." Surprised that she wouldgive a mad woman such instructions, I fully expected to see the frenziedcreature rush at the doctor. Luckily she did not, but commenced to repeather refrain of "Oh, Lucifer." After the doctor left, Miss Grupe again triedto excite the woman by saying the pictured minstrel on the wall was thedevil, and the poor creature began to scream, "You divil, I'll give itto you," so that two nurses had to sit on her to keep her down. The attendantsseemed to find amusem*nt and pleasure in exciting the violent patientsto do their worst.

I always made a point of telling the doctors I was sane and asking tobe released, but the more I endeavored to assure them of my sanity themore they doubted it.

"What are you doctors here for?" I asked one, whose name I cannot recall.

"To take care of the patients and test their sanity," he replied.

"Very well," I said. "There are sixteen doctors on this island, andexcepting two, I have never seen them pay any attention to the patients.How can a doctor judge a woman's sanity by merely bidding her good morningand refusing to hear her pleas for release? Even the sick ones know itis useless to say anything, for the answer will be that it is their imagination.""Try every test on me," I have urged others, "and tell me am I sane orinsane? Try my pulse, my heart, my eyes; ask me to stretch out my arm,to work my fingers, as Dr. Field did at Bellevue, and then tell me if Iam sane." They would not heed me, for they thought I raved.

Again I said to one, "You have no right to keep sane people here. Iam sane, have always been so and I must insist on a thorough examinationor be released. Several of the women here are also sane. Why can't theybe free?"

"They are insane," was the reply, "and suffering from delusions."

After a long talk with Dr. Ingram, he said, "I will transfer you toa quieter ward." An hour later Miss Grady called me into the hall, and,after calling me all the vile and profane names a woman could ever remember,she told me that it was a lucky thing for my "hide" that I was transferred,or else she would pay me for remembering so well to tell Dr. Ingram everything."You d—n hussy, you forget all about yourself, but you never forget anythingto tell the doctor." After calling Miss Neville, whom Dr. Ingram also kindlytransferred, Miss Grady took us to the hall above, No. 7.

In hall 7 there are Mrs. Kroener, Miss Fitzpatrick, Miss Finney, andMiss Hart. I did not see as cruel treatment as down-stairs, but I heardthem make ugly remarks and threats, twist the fingers and slap the facesof 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 beforetheir 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 caughtme 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 thechin, and as I was tired refusing to tell where my home was, I would onlyspeak to him in Spanish.

Hall 7 looks rather nice to a casual visitor. It is hung with cheappictures 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 severalof the patients to sing, with some show of success. The artiste of thehall is Under, pronounced Wanda, a Polish girl. She is a gifted pianistwhen she chooses to display her ability. The most difficult music she readsat a glance, and her touch and expression are perfect.

On Sunday the quieter patients, whose names have been handed in by theattendants during the week, are allowed to go to church. A small Catholicchapel is on the island, and other services are also held.

A "commissioner" came one day, and made the rounds with Dr. Dent. Inthe basem*nt they found half the nurses gone to dinner, leaving the otherhalf in charge of us, as was always done. Immediately orders were givento bring the nurses back to their duties until after the patients had finishedeating. 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 easyto get in, but once there it is impossible to get out. I had intended tohave myself committed to the violent wards, the Lodge and Retreat, butwhen I got the testimony of two sane women and could give it, I decidednot 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 whenthe lawyer, Peter A. Hendricks, came and told me that friends of mine werewilling to take charge of me if I would rather be with them than in theasylum, I was only too glad to give my consent. I asked him to send mesomething to eat immediately on his arrival in the city, and then I waitedanxiously 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 whilethe 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 sideof her. Sadly I said farewell to all I knew as I passed them on my wayto 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 toher, and so I left my companions of hall 7.

I had looked forward so eagerly to leaving the horrible place, yet whenmy 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 onlyfor 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 wasa 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 IslandInsane Asylum, I was summoned to appear before the Grand Jury. Ianswered the summons with pleasure, because I longed to helpthose of God's most unfortunate children whom I had leftprisoners behind me. If I could not bring them that boon of allboons, liberty, I hoped at least to influence others to make lifemore bearable for them. I found the jurors to be gentlemen, andthat I need not tremble before their twenty-three augustpresences.

I swore to the truth of my story, and then I related all–from my start at the Temporary Home until my release. AssistantDistrict-Attorney Vernon M. Davis conducted the examination. Thejurors then requested that I should accompany them on a visit tothe Island. I was glad to consent.

No one was expected to know of the contemplated trip to theIsland, yet we had not been there very long before one of thecommissioners of charity and Dr. MacDonald, of Ward's Island,were with us. One of the jurors told me that in conversation witha man about the asylum, he heard that they were notified of ourcoming an hour before we reached the Island. This must have beendone while the Grand Jury were examining the insane pavilion atBellevue.

The trip to the island was vastly different to my first. Thistime we went on a clean new boat, while the one I had traveledin, they said, was laid up for repairs.

Some of the nurses were examined by the jury, and madecontradictory statements to one another, as well as to my story.They confessed that the jury's contemplated visit had been talkedover between them and the doctor. Dr. Dent confessed that he hadno means by which to tell positively if the bath was cold and ofthe number of women put into the same water. He knew the food wasnot what it should be, but said it was due to the lack of funds.

If nurses were cruel to their patients, had he any positivemeans of ascertaining it? No, he had not. He said all the doctorswere not competent, which was also due to the lack of means tosecure good medical men. In the conversation with me, he said:

"I am glad you did this now, and had I known yourpurpose, I would have aided you. We have no means of learning theway things are going except to do as you did. Since your storywas published I found a nurse at the Retreat who had watches setfor our approach, just as you had stated. She wasdismissed."

Miss Anne Neville was brought down, and I went into the hallto meet her, knowing that the sight of so many strange gentlemenwould excite her, even if she be sane. It was as I feared. Theattendants had told her she was going to be examined by a crowdof men, and she was shaking with fear. Although I had left heronly two weeks before, yet she looked as if she had suffered asevere illness, in that time, so changed was her appearance. Iasked her if she had taken any medicine, and she answered in theaffirmative. I then told her that all I wanted her to do was tellthe jury all we had done since I was brought with her to theasylum, so they would be convinced that I was sane. She only knewme as Miss Nellie Brown, and was wholly ignorant of my story.

She was not sworn, but her story must have convinced allhearers of the truth of my statements.

"When Miss Brown and I were brought here the nurses werecruel and the food was too bad to eat. We did not have enoughclothing, and Miss Brown asked for more all the time. I thoughtshe was very kind, for when a doctor promised her some clothingshe said she would give it to me. Strange to say, ever since MissBrown has been taken away everything is different. The nurses arevery kind and we are given plenty to wear. The doctors come tosee us often and the food is greatly improved."

Did we need more evidence?

The jurors then visited the kitchen. It was very clean, andtwo barrels of salt stood conspicuously open near the door! Thebread on exhibition was beautifully white and wholly unlike whatwas given us to eat.

We found the halls in the finest order. The beds wereimproved, and in hall 7 the buckets in which we were compelled towash had been replaced by bright new basins.

The institution was on exhibition, and no fault could befound.

But the women I had spoken of, where were they? Not one was tobe found where I had left them. If my assertions were not true inregard to these patients, why should the latter be changed, so tomake me unable to find them? Miss Neville complained before thejury of being changed several times. When we visited the halllater she was returned to her old place.

Mary Hughes, of whom I had spoken as appearing sane, was notto be found. Some relatives had taken her away. Where, they knewnot. The fair woman I spoke of, who had been sent here because shewas poor, they said had been transferred to another island. Theydenied all knowledge of the Mexican woman, and said there neverhad been such a patient. Mrs. Cotter had been discharged, andBridget McGuinness and Rebecca Farron had been transferred toother 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 ofparalysis, and we could not see her. If I was wrong in myjudgment of these patients' sanity, why was all this done? I sawTillie Mayard, and she had changed so much for the worse that Ishuddered when I looked at her.

I hardly expected the grand jury to sustain me, after they saweverything different from what it had been while I was there. Yetthey did, and their report to the court advises all the changesmade that I had proposed.

I have one consolation for my work–on the strength of mystory the committee of appropriation provides $1,000,000 morethan was ever before given, for the benefit of the insane.

[THE END.]

Miscellaneous Sketches.

BY NELLIE BLY.

TRYING TO BE A SERVANT.

MY STRANGE EXPERIENCE AT TWO EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES.

NONEbut the initiated know what a great question the servant question isand 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 dealof space with the subject. It is a serious question, since it affects allone 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 investigatethe 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 notknow how to furnish them. Still, it would not do toallow a little thing like a "reference " to stop me in mywork, and I would not ask any friend to commit herselfto further my efforts. Many girls must at one time bewithout references, I thought, and this encouraged me tomake the risk.

On Monday afternoon a letter came to the Worldoffice from a lawyer, complaining of an agency where, heclaimed, a client of his had paid for a servant, and theagent then refused to produce a girl. This shop I decidedto make my first essay. Dressed to look the characterI wanted to represent, I walked up Fourth Avenueuntil I found No. 69, the place I wanted. It was a lowframe building which retained all the impressions of oldage. The room on the first floor was filled with a conglomerationof articles which gave it the appearance of asecond-hand store. By a side door, leaning against thewall, was a large sign which told the passing public thatthat was the entrance to the "Germania Servants'Agency." On a straight, blue board, fastened lengthwiseto a second-story window, was, in large, encouragingwhite letters, the ominous word "Servants."

I entered the side door, and as there was nothing beforeme but the dirty, uncarpeted hall and a narrow, rickety-lookingstaircase, I went on to my fate. I passed twoclosed doors on the first landing, and on the third I sawthe word "Office." I did not knock, but turned the knobof the door, and, as it stuck top and bottom, I pressedmy shoulder against it. It gave way, so did I, and I enteredon my career as a servant with a tumble. It was a small room, with a low ceiling, a dusty ingrain carpet andcheaply papered walls. A heavy railing and a high deskand counter which divided the room gave it the appearanceof a police court. Around the walls were hung coloredadvertisem*nts of steamship lines and maps. Above the mantel, which was decorated with two plaster-parisbusts, was a square sheet of white paper. I viewed thelarge black letters on this paper with a quaking heart. "References Investigated!!" with two exclamation points.Now, if it had only been put quietly and mildly, or evenwith one exclamation point, but two–dreadful. It wasa death warrant to the idea I had of writing my own referencesif any were demanded.

A young woman who was standing with a downcast head by the window turned to look at the abrupt newcomer.A man who had apparently been conversing withher came hastily forward to the desk. He was a middle-sizedman, with a sharp, gray eye, a bald head, and a black frock-coat buttoned up tightly, showing to disadvantagehis rounded shoulders.

"Well?" he said to me, in a questioning manner, as he glanced quickly over my "get up."

"Are you the man who gets places for girls?" I asked,as if there were but one such man.

"Yes, I'm the man. Do you want a place?" he asked,with a decidedly German twang.

"Yes, I want a place," I replied.

"What did you work at last?"

"Oh, I was a chambermaid. Can you get me a position, do you think?"

"Yes, I can do that," he replied. "You're a nice-looking girland I can soon get you a place. Just the other day I got a girl a place for $20 a month, just because she was nice-looking. Many gentlemen, and ladiesalso, will pay more when girls are nice-looking. Wheredid you work last?"

"I worked in Atlantic City," I replied, with a mental cry for forgiveness.

"Have you no city references?"

"No, none whatever; but I want a job in this city, that's why I came here."

"Well, I can get you a position, never fear, only some people are mighty particular about references."

"Have you no place you can send me to now?" Isaid, determined to get at my business as soon as possible.

"You have to pay to get your name entered on the bookfirst," he said, opening a large ledger as he asked, "What is your name?"

"How much do you charge?" I asked, in order to give me time to decide on a name.

"I charge you one dollar for the use of the bureau for a month,and if I get you a big salary you will have to pay more."

"How much more?"

"That depends entirely on your salary," he answered, non-committal. "Your name?"

"Now, if I give you a dollar you will assure me a situation?"

"Certainly, that's what I'm here for."

"And you guarantee me work in this city?" I urged.

"Oh, certainly, certainly; that's what this agency is for. I'll get you a place, sure enough."

"All right, I'll give you a dollar, which is a great dealfor a girl out of work. My name is Sally Lees."

"What shall I put you down for?" he asked.

"Oh, anything," I replied, with a generosity that surprised myself.

"Then I shall put it chambermaid, waitress, nurse or seamstress." So my name, or the one assumed, was entered in the ledger,and as I paid my dollar I ventured the information that if he gave me a situation directly I should be pleased to give him more money. He warmedup at this and told me he should advertise me in the morning.

"Then you have no one in want of help now?"

"We have plenty of people, but not just now. They all come in the morning. This is too late in the day.Where are you boarding?"

At this moment a woman clad in a blue dress, with a small, black shawl wrapped around her, entered from a room in the rear. She also looked me over sharply, as ifI was an article for sale, as the man told her in Germanall that he knew about me.

"You can stay here," she said, in broken, badly broken English, after she had learned that I was friendless inthe city. "Where is your baggage?"

"I left my baggage where I paid for my lodging to-night," I answered. They tried to induce me to stop at their house.Only $2.50 a week, with board, or 20 cents a night for a bed.They urged that it was immaterial to them,only I had a better chance to secure work if I was always there;it was only for my own good they suggested it.I had one glance of the adjoining bedroom, and that sight made me firm in my determination to sleep elsewhere.

As the evening drew on I felt they would have no more applications for servants that afternoon, and after askingthe hour that I should return in the morning, I requested a receipt for my money. "You don't need to be so particular,"he said, crossly, but I told him I was, and insisteduntil he was forced to comply. It was not much of a receipt.He wrote on the blank side of the agency's advertising card:

"Sally Lees has paid $1. Good for one month use of bureau. 69 4th Ave."

On the following morning, about 10:30, I made my appearance at the agency. Some eight or ten girls were inthe room and the man who had pocketed my fee on the previous afternoon still adorned the throne back of the desk.No one said good-morning, or anything else for that matter,so I quietly slid onto a chair near the door.The girls were all comfortably dressed, and looked as ifthey had enjoyed hearty breakfasts. All sat silent, with a dreamy expression on their faces, except two who stoodby the window watching the passing throng and conversing in whispers with one another. I wanted to be withor near them, so that I might hear what was said. After waiting for some time I decided to awake the manto the fact that I wanted work, not a rest.

"Have you no place to send me this morning?"

"No; but I advertised you in the paper," and he handed me the Tribune of October 25 and pointed out the following notice:

"NURSE,&c.–By excellent, very neat English girl asnurse and seamstress, chambermaid and waitress, or parlor maid.Call at 69 4th ave.; no cards answered."

I choked down a laugh as I read myself advertised in this manner,and wondered what my role would be the next time. I began to hope some one would soon call for the excellent girl,but when an aged gentleman entered I wished just as ferventlythat he was not after me. I was enjoying my position too much,and I fear I could not restrain my gravity if any one began to question me. Poor old gentleman! He looked around helplessly,as if he was at a loss to know what to do. The agent did not leave him long in doubt. "You want a girl, sir?"

"Yes, my wife read an advertisem*nt in the Tribune this morning, and she sent me here to see the girl."

"Yes, yes, excellent girl, sir, come right back here," opening the gates and giving the gentleman a chair behindthe high counter. "You come here, Sally Lees," indicating a chair beside the visitor for me. I sat downwith an inward chuckle and the agent leaned over the back of a chair. The visitor eyed me nervously, and after clearing his throat several times and making vain attemptsat a beginning, he said:

"You are the girl who wants work?" And after I answered in the affirmative, he said: "Of course you knowhow to do all these things–you know what is requiredof a girl?"

"Oh, yes, I know," I answered confidently.

"Yes–well, how much do you want a month?"

"Oh, anything," I answered, looking to the agent for aid.He understood the look, for he began hurriedly:

"Fourteen dollars a month, sir. She is an excellent girl,good, neat, quick and of an amiable disposition."

I was astonished at his knowledge of my good qualities,but I maintained a lofty silence.

"Yes, yes," the visitor said, musingly. "My wifeonly pays ten dollars a month, and then if the girl is allright she is willing to pay more, you know. I really couldn't, you know—"

"We have no ten-dollar-girls here, sir," said the agentwith dignity; "you can't get an honest, neat, and respectablegirl for that amount."

"H'm, yes; well, this girl has good references, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes; I know all about her," said the agent,briskly and confidently. "She is an excellent girl, and I can give you the best personal reference–the best of references."

Here I was, unknown to the agent. So far as he knew, I might be a confidence woman, a thief, or everythingwicked, and yet the agent was vowing that he had good personal references.

"Well, I live in Bloomfield, N.J., and there are only fourin the family. Of course you are a good washer and ironer?" he said, turning to me. Before I had time to assure him of mywonderful skill in that line, the agent interposed:"This is not the girl you want. No, sir,this girl won't do general housework. This is the girl youare after," bringing up another. "She does general housework,"and he went on with a long list of her virtues, which weresimilar to those he had professed to findin me. The visitor got very nervous and began to insist that he could not take a girl unless his wife saw her first.Then the agent, when he found it impossible to make him take a girl, tried to induce the gentleman to join the bureau. "It will only cost you $2 for the use of the bureau for a month," he urged, but the visitor began to getmore nervous and to make his way to the door. I thoughthe was frightened because it was an agency, and it amusedme to hear how earnestly he pleaded that really he dare notemploy a girl without his wife's consent.

After the escape of this visitor we all resumed our formerpositions and waited for another visitor. It came in the shapeof a red-haired Irish girl.

"Well, you are back again?" was the greeting given her.

"Yes. That woman was horrible. She and her husband fought all the time,and the cook carried tales to the mistress. Sure and I wouldn't live atsuch a place. A splendid laundress, with a good 'karacter,' don't needto stay in such places, I told them. The lady of the house made me washevery other day; then she wanted me to be dressed like a lady, sure,and wear a cap while I was at work. Sure and it's no good laundress who canbe dressed up while at work, so I left her."

The storm had scarcely passed when another girl with fiery locks entered. She had a good face and a bright one, and I watched her closely.

"So you are back, too. You are troublesome," said the agent. Her eyes flashed as she replied:

"Oh, I'm troublesome, am I? Well, you can take a poor girl's money, anyway, and then you tell her she'stroublesome. It wasn't troublesome when you took my money; and where is the position? I have walked all overthe city, wearing out my shoes and spending my money in car-fare. Now, is this how you treat poor girls?"

"I did not mean anything by saying you were troublesome. That was only my fun," the agent tried to explain; and after awhile the girl quieted down.

Another girl came and was told that as she had not madeher appearance the day previous she could not expectto obtain a situation. He refused to send her wordif there was any chance. Then a messenger boy calledand said that Mrs. Vanderpool, of No. 36 West Thirty-ninthStreet, wanted the girl advertised in the morning paper.Irish girl No. 1 was sent, and she returned, afterseveral hours' absence, to say that Mrs. Vanderpool said,when she learned where the girl came from, that she knewall about agencies and their schemes, and she did not propose to have a girl from them. The girl buttonedMrs. Vanderpool's shoes, and returned to the agency to take her post of waiting.

I succeeded at last in drawing one of the girls, Winifred Friel, into conversation. She said she had beenwaiting for several days, and that she had no chance of a place yet. The agency had a place out of town to whichthey tried to force girls who declared they would not leave the city.Quite strange they never offered the place to girls who saidthey would work anywhere. Winifred Friel wanted it, but they would not allow her to go, yet they tried to insist on me accepting it.

"Well, now, if you won't take that I would like to see youget a place this winter," he said, angrily, when he foundthat I would not go out of the city.

"Why, you promised that you would find me a situation in the city."

"That's no difference; if you won't take what I offer you can do without," he said indifferently.

"Then give me my money," I said.

"No, you can't have your money. That goes into the bureau." I urged and insisted, to no avail, and so I left the agency,to return no more.

My second day I decided to apply to another agency,so I went to Mrs. L. Seely's, No. 68 Twenty-secondStreet. I paid my dollar fee and was taken to the thirdstory and put in a small room which was packed as closewith women as sardines in a box. After edging my wayin I was unable to move, so packed were we. A womancame up, and, calling me "that tall girl," told me roughlyas I was new it was useless for me to wait there. Some of the girls said Mrs. Seely was always cross to them,and that I should not mind it. How horribly stiflingthose rooms were! There were fifty-two in the roomwith me, and the two other rooms I could look into wereequally crowded, while groups stood on the stairs and in the hallway. It was a novel insight I got of life. Some girls laughed, others were sad, some slept, some ate,and others read, while all sat from morning till nightwaiting a chance to earn a living. They are long waits too.One girl had been there two months, others for days and weeks.It was good to see the glad look when called out to see a lady,and sad to see them return saying that they did not suit becausethey wore bangs, or their hair in the wrong style, or that they looked bilious, or that they were too tall, too short, too heavy,or too slender. One poor woman could not obtain a place becauseshe wore mourning, and so the objections ran.

I got no chance the entire day, and I decided that Icould not endure a second day in that human pack for two situations, so framing some sort of excuse I left the place,and gave up trying to be a servant.

Nellie Bly as a White Slave.

HER EXPERIENCE IN THE ROLE OF A NEW YORK SHOP-GIRL MAKING PAPER BOXES.

VERYearly the other morning I started out, not with the pleasure-seekers, butwith those who toil the day long that they may live. Everybody was rushing–girls of all ages and appearancesand hurrying men–and I went along, as one of the throng.I had often wondered at the tales of poor pay and cruel treatmentthat working girls tell. There was one way of getting at the truth,and I determined to try it. It was becoming myself a paper box factory girl.Accordingly, I started out in search of work without experience, reference, or aught to aid me.

It was a tiresome search, to say the least. Had my living depended on it,it would have been discouraging, almost maddening. I went to a great number of factories in and around Bleecker and Grand streets and Sixth Avenue, where the workers number up into the hundreds. "Do you know how to do the work?" was the question asked by every one. When I replied that I did not, they gave meno further attention.

"I am willing to work for nothing until I learn," I urged.

"Work for nothing! Why, if you paid us for coming we wouldn't have you in our way," said one.

"We don't run an establishment to teach women trades," said another, in answer to my plea for work.

"Well, as they are not born with the knowledge, how do they ever learn?" I asked.

"The girls always have some friend who wants to learn. If she wishes to lose timeand money by teaching her, we don't object, for we get the work the beginner does for nothing."

By no persuasion could I obtain an entree into the larger factories,so I concluded at last to try a smaller one at No. 196 Elm Street. Quite unlike the unkind, brusque men I had met at other factories,the man here was very polite. He said: "If you have never done the work,I don't think you will like it. It is dirty work and a girl has to spendyears at it before she can make much money. Our beginners are girls aboutsixteen years old, and they do not get paid for two weeks after they come here."

"What can they make afterward?"

"We sometimes start them at week work–$1.50 a week. When they become competent they go on piecework–that is,they are paid by the hundred."

"How much do they earn then?"

"A good worker will earn from $5 to $9 a week."

"Have you many girls here?"

"We have about sixty in the building and a numberwho take work home. I have only been in this businessfor a few months, but if you think you would like to try it,I shall speak to my partner. He has had some of his girlsfor eleven years. Sit down until I find him."

He left the office, and I soon heard him talking outsideabout me, and rather urging that I be given a chance. He soon returned, and with him a small man who spoke with a German accent. He stood by me without speaking,so I repeated by request. "Well, give your nameto the gentleman at the desk, and come down on Mondaymorning, and we will see what we can do for you."

And so it was that I started out early in the morning.I had put on a calico dress to work in and to suit mychosen trade. In a nice little bundle, covered with brown paper with a grease-spot on the center of it, was my lunch. I had an idea that every working girl carrieda lunch, and I was trying to give out the impression thatI was quite used to this thing. Indeed, I considered thelunch a telling stroke of thoughtfulness in my new role,and eyed with some pride, in which was mixed a little dismay,the grease-spot, which was gradually growing in size.

Early as it was I found all the girls there and at work.I went through a small wagon-yard, the only entrance to the office. After making my excuses to the gentlemanat the desk, he called to a pretty little girl, who had herapron full of pasteboard, and said:

"Take this lady up to Norah."

"Is she to work on boxes or cornucopias?" asked the girl.

"Tell Norah to put her on boxes."

Following my little guide, I climbed the narrowest,darkest, and most perpendicular stair it has ever beenmy misfortune to see. On and on we went, throughsmall rooms, filled with working girls, to the top floor–fourthor fifth story, I have forgotten which. Any way, I was breathless when I got there.

"Norah, here is a lady you are to put on boxes," called out my pretty little guide.

All the girls that surrounded the long tables turnedfrom their work and looked at me curiously. The auburn-hairedgirl addressed as Norah raised her eyes from the box she was making, and replied:

"See if the hatchway is down, and show her where to put her clothes."

Then the forewoman ordered one of the girls to "get the lady a stool,"and sat down before a long table, on which was piled a lot of pasteboardsquares, labeled in the center. Norah spread some long slips of paper on the table;then taking up a scrub-brush, she dipped it into a bucket of paste and then rubbed itover the paper. Next she took one of the squares of pasteboard and, runningher thumb deftly along, turned up the edges. This done, she took one of the slips of paper and put it quickly and neatly over thecorner, binding them together and holding them in place.She quickly cut the paper off at the edge with her thumb-nail and swung the thingaround and did the next corner. This I soon found made a box lid. It looked and wasvery easy, and in a few moments I was able to make one.

I did not find the work difficult to learn, but rather disagreeable.The room was not ventilated, and the paste and glue were very offensive.The piles of boxes made conversation impossible with all the girls except a beginner, Therese, who sat by my side. She was verytimid at first, but after I questioned her kindly she grew more communicative.

"I live on Eldrige Street with my parents. My father is a musician, but he will not go on the streets to play.He very seldom gets an engagement. My mother is sick nearly all the time.I have a sister who works at passem*nterie.She can earn from $3 to $5 a week.I have another sister who has been spooling silk in Twenty-thirdStreet for five years now. She makes $6 a week.When she comes home at night her face and hands and hair are all colored from the silk she works on during the day.It makes her sick, and she is always taking medicine."

"Have you worked before?"

"Oh, yes; I used to work at passem*nterie on Spring Street.I worked from 7 until 6 o'clock, piecework, and made about $3.50 a week. I left because the bosses werenot kind, and we only had three little oil lamps to see towork by. The rooms were very dark, but they never allowed usto burn the gas. Ladies used to come here and take the work home to do. They did it cheap, for the pleasure of doing it, so we did not get as much pay as we would otherwise."

"What did you do after you left there?" I asked.

"I went to work in a fringe factory on Canal Street.A woman had the place and she was very unkind to all the girls. She did not speak English. I worked an entire week,from 8 to 6, with only a half-hour for dinner, and at the endof the week she only paid me 35 cents. You know a girl cannotlive on 35 cents a week, so I left."

"How do you like the box factory?"

"Well, the bosses seem very kind. They always saygood-morning to me, a thing never done in any otherplace I ever worked, but it is a good deal for a poor girlto give two weeks' work for nothing. I have been herealmost two weeks, and I have done a great deal of work.It's all clear gain to the bosses. They say they oftendismiss a girl after her first two weeks on the plea that shedoes not suit. After this I am to get $1.50 a week."

When the whistles of the surrounding factories blew at12 o'clock the forewoman told us we could quit work andeat our lunch. I was not quite so proud of my clevernessin simulating a working girl when one of them said:

"Do you want to send out for your lunch?"

"No; I brought it with me," I replied.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, with a knowing inflection and amused smile.

"Is there anything wrong?" I asked, answering her smile.

"Oh, no," quickly; "only the girls always make fun of any one who carries a basket now. No working-girlwill carry a lunch or basket. It is out of style because itmarks the girl at once as a worker. I would like to carry a basket, but I don't dare, because they would make so much fun of me."

The girls sent out for lunch and I asked of them the prices. For five cents they get a good pint of coffee,with sugar and milk if desired. Two cents will buy threeslices of buttered bread. Three cents, a sandwich. Manytimes a number of the girls will put all their money togetherand buy quite a little food. A bowl of soup for five centswill give four girls a taste. By clubbing together theyare able to buy warm lunch.

At one o'clock we were all at work again. I havingcompleted sixty-four lids, and the supply being consumedwas put at "molding in." This is fitting the bottominto the sides of the box and pasting it there. It israther difficult at first to make all the edges come closelyand neatly together, but after a little experience it can be done easily.

On my second day I was put at a table with some new girls andI tried to get them to talk. I was surprised to findthat they are very timid about telling their names, where they live or how.I endeavored by every means a woman knows, to get an invitation to visittheir homes, but did not succeed.

"How much can girls earn here?" I asked the forewoman.

"I do not know," she said; "they never tell each other, and the bosses keep their time."

"Have you worked here long?" I asked.

"Yes, I have been here eight years, and in that time I have taught my three sisters."

"Is the work profitable?"

"Well, it is steady; but a girl must have many years' experience before she can workfast enough to earn much."

The girls all seem happy. During the day they would make the little building resound with their singing. A song would be begun on the second floor, probably, and eachfloor would take it up in succession, until all were singing.They were nearly always kind to one another.Their little quarrels did not last long, nor were they very fierce.They were all extremely kind to me, and did all they could to make my work easy and pleasant. I felt quite proud when able to make an entire box.

There were two girls at one table on piecework who had been in a great many box factories and had had a varied experience.

"Girls do not get paid half enough at any work.Box factories are no worse than other places.I do not know anything a girl can do where by hard work she can earn more than $6 a week. A girl cannot dress and pay her boarding on that."

"Where do such girls live?" I asked.

"There are boarding-places on Bleecker and Houston, and around such places, where girls can get a room and meals for $3.50 a week. The room may be only for two,in one bed, or it may have a dozen, according to size.They have no conveniences or comforts, and generallyundesirable men board at the same place."

"Why don't they live at these homes that are run toaccommodate working women?"

"Oh, those homes are frauds. A girl cannot obtainany more home comforts, and then the restrictions aremore than they will endure. A girl who works all daymust have some recreation, and she never finds it in homes."

"Have you worked in box factories long?"

"For eleven years, and I can't say that it has evergiven me a living. On an average I make $5 a week.I pay out $3.50 for board, and my wash bill at the least is 75 cents.Can any one expect a woman to dress on what remains?"

"What do you get paid for boxes?"

"I get 50 cents a hundred for one-pound candy boxes,and 40 cents a hundred for half-pound boxes."

"What work do you do on a box for that pay?"

"Everything. I get the pasteboard cut in squares the same as you did.I first 'set up' the lids, then I 'mold in' the bottoms.This forms a box. Next I do the 'trimming,' which is putting the gilt edgearound the box lid. 'Cover striping' (covering the edge of the lid) is next,and then comes the 'top label,' which finishes the lid entire.Then I paper the box, do the 'bottom labeling,' and then put in two or four laces(lace paper) on the inside as ordered. Thus you see one box passes through my hands eight times before it is finished. I have to work very hard and without ceasing to be able to make two hundred boxes a day, which earns me $1. It is not enough pay. You see I handle two hundred boxes sixteen hundred times for $1.Cheap labor, isn't it?"

One very bright girl, Maggie, who sat opposite me, told a story that made my heart ache.

"This is my second week here," she said, "and, of course, I won't receive any payuntil next week, when I expect to receive $1.50 for six days' work. My fatherwas a driver before he got sick. I don't know what is wrong, but the doctor sayshe will die. Before I left this morning he said my father will die soon.I could hardly work because of it. I am the oldest child, and I have a brotherand two sisters younger. I am sixteen, and my brother is twelve. He gets $2 a week for being office-boy at a cigar-box factory."

"Do you have much rent to pay?"

"We have two rooms in a house on Houston Street. They are small andhave low ceilings, and there are a great many Chinamen in the same house.We pay for these rooms $14 per month. We do not have much to eat, but then father doesn't mind it because he can't eat. We could not live if father's lodge did not pay our rent."

"Did you ever work before?"

"Yes, I once worked in a carpet factory at Yonkers.I only had to work there one week until I learned,and afterward I made at piecework a dollar a day.When my father got so ill my mother wanted me at home,but now when we see I can earn so little they wish I had remained there."

"Why do you not try something else?" I asked.

"I wanted to, but could find nothing. Father sent me to schooluntil I was fourteen, and so I thought I would learn to be a telegraphoperator. I went to a place in Twenty-third Street, where it is taught,but the man said he would not give me a lesson unless I paid fifty dollarsin advance. I could not do that."

I then spoke of the Cooper Institute, which I thought every New Yorker knew was for the benefit of just such cases. I was greatly astonishedto learn that such a thing as the Cooper Institute was wholly unknown to all the workers around me.

"If my father knew that there was a free school he would send me," said one.

"I would go in the evenings," said another, "if I had known there was such a place."

Again, when some of them were complaining of unjust wages, and some of placeswhere they had been unable to collect the amount due them after working, I spoke of the mission of the Knights of Labor, and the newly organized society for women. They were all surprised to hear that there were any meansto aid women in having justice. I moralized somewhat on the use of any suchsocieties unless they entered the heart of these factories.

One girl who worked on the floor below me said they were not allowedto tell what they earned. However, she had been working here five years,and she did not average more than $5 a week. The factory in itself wasa totally unfit place for women. The rooms were small and there was no ventilation. If case of fire there was practically no escape.

The work was tiresome, and after I had learned all I could from the rather reticent girls I was anxious to leave. I noticed some rather peculiar things on my trip to and from the factory. I noticed that menwere much quicker to offer their places to the working-girls on the carsthan they were to offer them to well-dressed women. Another thing quite as noticeable, I had more men try to get up a flirtation with me while I was a box-factory girl than I ever had before. The girls were nice in their manners and as polite as ones reared at home.They never forgot to thank one another for the slightest service, andthere was quite a little air of "good form" in many of their actions. I have seen many worse girls in much higher positions than the white slaves of New York.

THE END.

WHAT IS SAPOLIO?
It is a handsome cake of scouring soap,which has no equal for all cleaning purposes except the laundry.To use it is to value it.
What will Sapolio do? Why, it will clean paint, make oil-cloths bright,and give the floors, tables, and shelves a new appearance.
It will take the grease off the dishes and off the pots and pans.
You can scour the knives and forks with it, and make the tin things shinebrightly. The wash-basin, the bath-tub, even the greasy kitchen sink, will be as clean as a new pin if you use SAPOLIO. One cake will prove all we say.Be a clever little housekeeper and try it.
BEWARE OF IMITATIONS.
=Dr. A. W. THOMPSON, Northampton. Mass., says: "I have tested the GlutenSuppositories, and consider them valuable, as indeed I expected from the excellence of their history."
Dr. WM. TODD HELMUTH declares the Gluten Suppositories to be "the best remedy forconstipation which I have ever prescribed."
As Sancho Panza said of sleep, so say I of your Gluten Suppositories: "God blessthe man who invented them!"–E. L. RIPLEY, Burlington, Vt.
"I prescribe the Gluten Suppositories almost daily in my practice, and am often astonished at the permanent results obtained."–j. MONTFORT SCHLEY,M. D., Professor Physical Diagnosis Woman's Medical College, New York City.
HEALTH FOOD CO., 76 4th Avenue, N. Y.
Neuralgine, the Great Pain Cure.
One application of NEURALGINE removes in many cases the most excruciating pain–the worst cases rarely needing more than two or three.
SUFFERERS should at once send for this invaluable REMEDY.
Price 50 cts. per Bottle.
For sale by all Druggists, or will be sent by mail to any address, postage paid.
Neuralgine Company,
26 Vandewater Street, New York.

About This Edition

This book has been put on-line as part of the BUILD-A-BOOK Initiative at A Celebration of Women Writers through the work of: Lisa Bartle and Mary Mark Ockerbloom.

Size and placement of illustrations may vary from the original.

Ten Days in a Mad-House. (2024)

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I.A DELICATE MISSION.

CHAPTER II.PREPARING FOR THE ORDEAL.

CHAPTER III.IN THE TEMPORARY HOME.

CHAPTER IV.JUDGE DUFFY AND THE POLICE.

CHAPTER V.PRONOUNCED INSANE.

CHAPTER VI.IN BELLEVUE HOSPITAL.

CHAPTER VII.THE GOAL IN SIGHT.

CHAPTER VIII.INSIDE THE MADHOUSE.

CHAPTER IX. AN EXPERT(?) AT WORK.

CHAPTER X.MY FIRST SUPPER.

CHAPTER XI.IN THE BATH.

CHAPTER XII.PROMENADING WITH LUNATICS.

CHAPTER XIII.CHOKING AND BEATING PATIENTS.

CHAPTER XIV.SOME UNFORTUNATE STORIES.

CHAPTER XV.INCIDENTS OF ASYLUM LIFE.

CHAPTER XVI.THE LAST GOOD-BYE.

CHAPTER XVII.THE GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION.