This custom was continued down to about 1838; a single slice of cheese and a penny loaf, being, at last, all that was thrown; the old method of dispensing alms having been found to be anything but charitable alms’-giving. The Sunday before Christmas was, in fact, in the last century and beginning of this, a sort of fair-day, for the sturdy vagabonds of London, who came to Paddington to scramble over dead men’s bones for bread and cheese. The dispute about _the half-acre_ is settled, as I am informed, by the bishop having established his right to it; and the whole of the second portion of the bread and cheese lands, mentioned in this Report, was sold to the Great Western Railway Company for £1,200. There remains, therefore, of this charity-estate only a portion of the first, and the third parcels, reported on by the Committee of the House of Commons. On the twenty-seventh of July, 1838, the first and second Victoria, Chap. 32, “An Act for enabling the trustees of certain lands situate in the Parish of Paddington, in the county of Middlesex, to grant building leases of the said lands and for other purposes,” confirmed an order of the Court of Chancery relative to the appointment of trustees, and the disposal of the proceeds of this freehold estate. By this Act six trustees are appointed, and future appointments are to be made by the vestry, whenever the number is reduced to three; and to these, and their successors, power is given to grant building leases. And after the payment of all costs and charges relative to their trust, they are directed to “pay and apply the rents and profits arising from the said Charity Estates, in manner following, that is to say, the same to be divided into five equal parts, three-fifths thereof to be applied towards the support of the Paddington Parochial National and Infant Schools, for the instruction of boys and girls, children of poor persons residing in the said parish of Paddington; one other fifth-part towards apprenticing or instructing in business, for their future support, boys and girls, the children of parishioners of and not having received parochial relief from the said parish; and the remaining one-fifth part in the distribution of bread and cheese, coals, blankets, and other necessary articles, at the discretion of the said trustees, for the benefit of and amongst poor parishioners of the said parish not receiving parochial relief.” By the ninth section of this Act, the money paid into the Court of Exchequer for that portion of the estate sold to the Great Western Railway Company, was assigned to the application for and expenses incurred in obtaining this Act. The schedule which is annexed to this Act describes the bread and cheese lands, then claimed by the trustees, as follows:—