This legacy is now three hundred pounds three per cent. reduced annuities, standing in the name of the testator, George Abourne. The dividends, nine pounds a year, are received by Benjamin Edward Hall, esq., as executor of James Crompton, the surviving executor of Benjamin Crompton, who was surviving executor of the testator, George Abourne. Mr. Hall distributes the amount annually, on the twenty-fourth of January, among poor persons of the parish of Paddington, where Mr. Abourne was buried, by tickets, each entitling the bearer to four pounds of meat and a loaf of the same weight. The number of persons receiving them varies according to circumstances; they are selected either upon Mr. Hall’s personal knowledge, or the recommendation of respectable inhabitants; preference being generally given to the most aged and infirm, or such as are encumbered with the largest families. {68} Mr. Hall furnished us with a statement of the receipts and expenditure from the time that the charity came into action in 1792, from which it appears that, one year with another, more has been given than the amount of the dividends. * * * * * The poor of this parish owe much to Messrs. Robertson and Parton for the trouble they took to preserve the memory of those rights which remained at the time they accepted the office of vestry-clerks. Had it not been for their exertions, I very much question, judging from what had taken place and from the state of affairs when they were appointed, whether anything respecting these lands would have been known now; and there can be no doubt but their “account” was a very imperfect one. All those who were benefited by past peculation, would studiously avoid giving these gentlemen the benefit of their knowledge; and even now it is exceedingly difficult to obtain any traditional information on this subject. One of the oldest tenants of the charity-lands plainly said to me, with a blunt honesty I could not but admire, “You’ll excuse me, Sir, but if I could tell you any thing, I wouldn’t.” I have already mentioned my notions respecting the origin of the term “Bread and Cheese Lands.” The tale which is told, and which has hitherto been generally received, is to be found in the London Magazine, for December, 1737:—“Sunday, 18th, this day, according to annual custom, bread and cheese were thrown from Paddington Steeple to the populace, agreeably to the will of two women who were relieved there with bread and cheese when they were almost starved, and Providence afterwards favouring them, they left an estate in that parish to continue the custom for ever on that day.”