At the beginning of the last century, next to the beautiful fields and quiet village, the gallows and the gibbet were the principal attractions in Paddington. At the beginning of this, “Tomlin’s New Town;” the collection of cottages, west of St. George’s-row; a row of gardens, and a large bowling-green, by the side of the Edgeware-road, between Tybourn turnpike, and Paddington, were called into existence. These changes, in conjunction with the grand canal of Paddington, {190} obliterated in a few years the work of centuries; and succeeded not only in altering the whole aspect of the place, but in infusing another element of social life into the people. Lysons, writing in 1794, says “this parish being chiefly church-land, there has been but little increase of buildings till about four years ago; since which time a number of small wooden cottages, to the amount of nearly one hundred, have been erected a little north of Tybourn turnpike. These cottages are let at from £7 to £12 per annum, and inhabited principally by journeymen artificers who work in London, forming with their families a small colony of about 600 persons.” In the second edition of Lysons’ Work, published in 1811, he tells us these cottages were begun to be built in 1790. And he was informed by Mr. Pickering, the curate at that time, that before the second census was taken, they had increased to 600. In Horwood’s large and beautiful plan of London, dated 1799, we find that a part of this colony, that lot of cottages built nearly opposite George-street, was called Tomlin’s New Town. We see, too, that St. George’s row was built at this time; that to the west of it a large building, called Trafalgar, existed; and that another plot of land had been covered with cottages. So that some portion of this colony was added to the people of Paddington, and these tenements to the Tybourn Field, before the bishop’s first Building Act, was passed. Whether these wooden houses were built in anticipation of that Act, by some one who had heard the tale of the tinker, who lit his fire, and boiled his pot, and erected his shed, all in one night, at the corner of old Church-street; and who could not be dispossessed of that land which he had so magically acquired; (a tradition which appears to have some reference to the establishment of Paedings New Town,) or whether these miserable sheds were built by the direction of the ground landlords, to give them a telling argument in favour of their private Act,—I cannot say. Both landlord and tenant, however, found the power of a modern private Act of Parliament, and the “journeymen artificers” had to “move on,” in order that Connaught-terrace, and better houses for the rich, might be built. The greater part of the enormous increase in the population between 1801 and 1811, was caused by the erection of these cottages, so very ill-suited for preserving health and life. They were soon filled,