The parish workhouses discouraged helping the poor.
The poor were punished in many ways: picking "oakum",
the "universal staircase", men having to break rocks
(the creation of broken rocks was not for rocks to
serve a purpose). Crank-labour (winding winches with
hard to turn "cranks") was another punishment. Men and
women were separated in the workhouses (whether married
or not). Mothers and fathers were separated from their
children. The mentally ill were treated even worse:
constantly falling to their deaths from windows or down
stair cases, their "nurses" in very close proximity.