AT long last, Blackburn's workhouse has bitten the dust (LET, January 12). I would suggest that every stone, every slate, every vestige of that terrible place should be passed through a crushing machine and then buried in a refuse tip.

The workhouses of the 18th and 19th century were a malignant cancer on the soul of this nation -- a nation that professed to Christianity.

And yet, perhaps a short distance from the church, was a workhouse in which the inmates, the old, the sick and the blind, were kept in the most inhumane conditions imaginable.

It is recorded -- and this is just one of the many crimes committed -- an elderly couple married for more than 50 years could not occupy the same room, even though the husband was blind and very ill -- it was against the rules of the workhouse. You can be a rogue, a knave or a fool, but do not be poor, it is against the rules.

Perhaps Crabbe in his famous poem can describe a workhouse better than I can...

There children dwell who know no parent's care

Parents who know no children's love dwell there,

Heartbroken matrons on their joyless bed

Forsaken wives and mothers never wed.

Dejected widows with unheeded tears

And crippled age with more than childlike fears,

The old, the sick and the blind and by far

The happiest they, the moping idiot and the madman gay.

Land of hope and glory, Mother of the free? Humbug, sir, humbug!

LESLIE JONES, Aviemore Close, Audley, Blackburn.