The Complete Works of Nellie Bly: Ten Days in a Mad-House, Around the World in Seventy-Two Days and More

by Nellie Bly

the mayor assured me that the band had been brought down, but they forgot to play. They merely shouted like the rest, forgetting in the excitement all about their music.

"There's Nellie Bly!" In one instant the crowd that had been yelling like mad became so silent that a pin could have been heard fall to the floor.

my trip was so pleasant I dreaded the finish of it.

One run was 250 miles in 250 minutes,

To so many people this wide world over am I indebted for kindnesses that I cannot, in a little book like this, thank them all individually. They form a chain around the earth.

am happy to be able to state as a result of my visit to the asylum and the exposures consequent thereon, that the City of New York has appropriated $1,000,000 more per annum than ever before for the care of the insane. So I have at least the satisfaction of knowing that the poor unfortunates will be the better cared for because of my work.

Could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell's Island? I said I could and I would.

"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 as you think best, and the truth all the time.

If I did get into the asylum, which I hardly hoped to do,

The many stories I had read of abuses in such institutions I had regarded as wildly exaggerated or else romances, yet there was a latent desire to know positively.

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

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 never forget.

regret that I could not have brought with me some of the unfortunate women who lived and suffered with me, and who, I am convinced, are just as sane as I was and am now myself.

the more sanely I talked and acted the crazier I was thought to be by all except one physician,

when I thought of what was to come, wintery chills ran races up and down my back in very mockery of the perspiration which was slowly but surely taking the curl out of my bangs.

the strain of playing crazy, and being shut up with a crowd of mad people, might turn my own brain, and I would never get back. But not once did I think of shirking my mission.

without one change in her peculiarly matured face.

the sooner my funds were exhausted the sooner I should be put out, and to be put out was what I was working for.

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.

Ah! that was indeed the longest day I had ever lived.

Another woman always kept going to sleep and waking herself up with her own snoring. I really felt wickedly thankful it was only herself she awakened.

The enormous door-bell seemed to be going all the time, and so did the short-haired girl.

There is such a thing as martyrdom in these days.

partook of the evening meal, which was similar to dinner, except that there was a spaner bill of fare and more people,

"sparer"

the light which fell from the solitary gas jet in the parlor, and oil-lamp the hall, helped to envelop us in a dusky hue and dye our spirits navy blue.

and I selected them as the ones to work out my salvation, or, more properly speaking, my condemnation and conviction.

I asked if I could not sit on the stairs, but she said, decisively: "No; for every one in the house would think you were crazy."

But how I tortured all of them! One of them dreamed of me-as a nightmare.

One incident, if never so trifling, is but a link more to chain us to our unchangeable fate. I began at the beginning, and lived again the story of my life.

The turned-down pages of my life were turned up, and the past was present.

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

hailed with joy the slight shimmer of dawn. The light grew strong and gray, but the silence was strikingly still.

came together, seemed to hold interesting converse, and acted in every way as if they were puzzled by the absence of an appetizing breakfast.

It is only after one is in trouble that one realizes how little sympathy and kindness there are in the world.

I was a poor unfortunate who had been driven crazy by inhuman treatment.

The whole situation grew interesting, but I still had fears for my fate before the judge.

wearing a look which seemed to indicate that he was dealing out the milk of human kindness by wholesale.

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

poorly dressed men and women with stories printed on their faces of hard lives, abuse and poverty.

Everywhere was a sprinkling of well-dressed, well-fed officers watching the scene passively and almost indifferently.

while I silently blessed the kind-hearted judge, and hoped that any poor creatures who might be afflicted as I pretended to be should have as kindly a man to deal with

Probably in a few days the effect of the drug will pass off and she will be able to tell us a story that will be startling.

Everybody is asking me questions, and it makes my head worse," and in truth it did.

I had not the least idea how the heart of an insane person beat, so I held my breath all the while he listened, until, when he quit, I had to give a gasp to regain it.

If we only had more such men as Judge Duffy, the poor unfortunates would not find life all darkness.

the driver drove as if he feared some one would catch up with us.

and a muscular man came forward and caught me so tightly by the arm that a pain ran clear through me. It made me angry, and for a moment I forgot my role as I turned to him and said: "How dare you touch me?" At this he loosened his hold somewhat, and I shook him off with more strength than I thought I possessed.

With all my bravery I felt a chill at the prospect of being shut up with a fellow-creature who was really insane.

I found her in need of medical aid and quite silly mentally, although I have seen many women in the lower walks of life, whose sanity was never questioned, who were not any brighter.

It could not have been colder had it been cooked the week before, and it had no chance to make acquaintance with salt or pepper.