Besides a miscalculation of at least four thousand in the then actual population of Paddington, these reporters must have been very ignorant of the previous history of the parish, or they must have had very bad memories. We have seen how St. Mary’s was built, and how it was paid for; and a church-rate enforced by warrants of distress, and these again backed up by the certainty of imprisonment, till the rate and all expenses were paid, I think one may call a compulsory levy. Even those who lived in the parish the year before this report was written, had felt the twitch of this clerical scourge,—not the last they were to feel by a great number; for on the twenty-fourth of April, 1839, a church-rate was made, and the Cash Accounts for the year ending, April, 1838–39, shew that £850 5_s._ 9¾_d._ had been collected by “compulsory levy,” in these years, “to pay off Mrs. Jenks’s last Church Bond Debt.” But how these reporters could have forgotten the day ever memorable in the annals of the present vestry of Paddington, I cannot imagine; nor how that on this fifth day of May, 1829, when the church-rate was in danger, the Bishop of London, the Viscount Bernard, the Honourable Mr. Mac’Donald, the Rev. John Joseph Pike, and nine others,—having taken the oath of office, to execute faithfully, impartially, and honestly, according to the best of their skill and knowledge, the several powers and authorities reposed in them—proceeded at once, with other vestrymen, to make a church-rate of threepence in the pound; for so far as I can discover, this is the only time the vestry of Paddington was ever honoured, at its sittings, by a visit from the spiritual and temporal lord of the parish. This congratulation of the Committee, respecting all the good that had been done without any compulsory levy, was only the warming up, under more favourable circumstances for the instant, of one that had been tendered to the parish, when the first subscriptions for St. John’s were announced. But for that half year, 1826, sixpence in the pound was the amount of the church-rate levied, the full sum allowed by the law. And, although there was no compulsory levy at the time this report was written—none from 1839 to 1842,—yet there was one made in the latter year, which continued to be made twice-a-year, down to 1851, continues to be made annually now, and must be continued for years to come. On the eighth of February, 1843, “the Committee for building the new church in this parish, have the satisfaction of informing the parishioners, that the church is nearly completed, and will be opened for Divine service, on or before the first of May next, _provided sufficient funds for that purpose are previously collected_.” So, “the immediate aid of those persons who have not subscribed to this important undertaking” is solicited, “to defray the whole expense, for which a considerable sum is still required.”