Other facts relative to this estate, will be found in the next part of this Work, and after perusing them, in conjunction with those I have collected in this, I think my readers will conclude, with me, that the inhabitants of Paddington—who have to pay the owners of the Paddington Estate most exorbitant prices for the privilege of living on their land—owe but little gratitude to these lords of the soil for the small favours they have given, in return for the enormous wealth the industry of others is placing in their hands. PART II. THE PARISH AND THE PEOPLE. CHAPTER I. DEFINITION—SITUATION—BOUNDARIES AND EXTENT—GENERAL AND MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY—ETYMOLOGY OF NAMES—ORIGIN. BLACKSTONE defines a parish to be “that circuit of ground which is committed to the charge of one parson, or vicar, or other minister having cure of souls therein.” In ordinary language a parish is “that place, or district, which manages its local affairs, and maintains its own poor.” Newcourt says, “This parish of Paddington (which is a very small one) is within the liberties of Finsbury and Wenlakesbarn, and lies about three or four miles north-westward from London.” Lysons tells us, that “The Village of Paddington is situated in the hundred of Ossulston, scarcely a mile north of Tyburn turnpike, upon the Harrow-road.” All the other descriptions of the situation of the “pretty little rural village of Paddington,” which I have seen, resemble these given by Newcourt and Lysons; but these are now so inapplicable to its present state, that it would be useless to quote from other authorities. The hundred of Ossulston originally comprised, as I have already observed, nearly, if not quite, half the county of Middlesex; but after a time “the liberties of Westminster,” and “the liberties of London,” were taken out of this hundred: that is to say, these places became of so much importance as to claim and obtain separate jurisdictions. The hundred of Ossulston was then reduced to a small portion of the county north and east of London, while by far the greater part of the old hundred, still waste and wood, was included under a separate jurisdiction, called in the old maps “Fynnesberry and Wen Lax Barne.” Another re-arrangement however has taken place; the ancient liberties of Finsbury and Wenlakesbarn are now included in the hundred of Ossulston; the hundred itself is separated into four divisions, and Paddington is included, with certain other districts, in “the Holbourn division” of this re-arranged hundred.