A Gruesome Workhouse Thought by Some to Have Inspired Charles Dickens to write "Oliver Twist."

Here's an interesting story from the Daily Mail about a gruesome workhouse thought by some to have inspired Charles Dickens to write "Oliver Twist." According to the article, says Dickens grew up near the Cleveland Street workhouse and was very familiar with the chilling cruelties directed at the poor in 19th Century London.

Here's how Dickens introduces the workhouse in his novel: "Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter."