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

damned because of one act in her life.
    Her horrible cry, morning and night, “I am damned for all eternity!”
    would strike horror to my soul. Her agony seemed like a glimpse of
    the inferno.
    After being transferred to hall 7 I was locked in a room every night
    with six crazy women. Two of them seemed never to sleep, but spent
    the night in raving. One would get out of her bed and creep 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 attack any of the other
    patients confined with her. It did not make the night more
    comfortable.
    One middle-aged woman, who used to sit always in the corner of the
    room, was very strangely affected. She had a piece of newspaper,
    and from it she continually read the most wonderful things I ever
    heard. I often sat close by her and listened. History and romance fell
    equally well from her lips.
    I saw but one letter given a patient while I was there. It awakened a
    big interest. Every patient seemed thirsty for a word from the world,
    and they crowded around the one who had been so fortunate and
    asked hundreds of questions.
    Visitors make but little interest and a great deal of mirth. Miss Mattie
    Morgan, in hall 7, played for the entertainment of some visitors one
    day. They were close about her until one whispered that she was a
    patient. “Crazy!” they whispered, audibly, as they fell back and left
    her alone. She was amused as well as indignant over the episode.
    Miss Mattie, assisted by several girls she has trained, makes the
    evenings pass very pleasantly in hall 7. They sing and dance. Often
    the doctors come up and dance with the patients.
    One day when we went down to dinner we heard a weak little cry in
    the basement. Every one seemed to notice it, and it was not long
    until we knew there was a baby down there. Yes, a baby. Think of it–

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    a little, innocent babe born in such a chamber of horrors! I can
    imagine nothing more terrible.
    A visitor who came one day brought in her arms her babe. A mother
    who had been separated from her five little children asked
    permission to hold it. When the visitor wanted to leave, the woman’s
    grief was uncontrollable, as she begged to keep the babe which she
    imagined was her own. It excited more patients than I had ever seen
    excited before at one time.
    The only amusement, if so it may be called, given the patients
    outside, is a ride once a week, if the weather permits, on the “merry-
    go-round.” It is a change, and so they accept it with some show of pleasure.
    A scrub-brush factory, a mat factory, and the laundry, are where the
    mild patients work. They get no recompense for it, but they get
    hungry over it.

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    CHAPTER XVI.
    THE LAST GOOD-BYE.
    THE day Pauline Moser was brought to the asylum we heard the
    most horrible screams, and an Irish girl, only partly dressed, came
    staggering like a drunken person up the hall, yelling, “Hurrah! Three
    cheers! I have killed the 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 horrible songs. After the Irish
    girl had been there an hour or so, Dr. Dent came in, and as he
    walked down the hall, Miss Grupe whispered to the demented girl,
    “Here is the devil coming, go for him.” Surprised that she would
    give a mad woman such instructions, I fully expected to see the
    frenzied creature rush at the doctor. Luckily she did not, but
    commenced to repeat her refrain of “Oh, Lucifer.” After the doctor
    left, Miss Grupe again tried to excite the woman by saying the
    pictured minstrel on the wall was the devil, and the poor creature
    began to scream, “You divil, I’ll give it to you,” so that two nurses
    had to sit on