The glory of the first public Company which shed its influence over Paddington, has in a great measure departed; the shares of the Grand Junction Canal Company are below par, though the traffic on this silent highway to Paddington, is still considerable; and the cheap trips into the country offered by its means, during the summer months, are beginning to be highly appreciated by the people, who are pent in close lanes and alleys; and I have no doubt the shareholders’ dividends would not be diminished by a more liberal attention to this want.
If every one had their right, I am told there would be a wharf, adjoining this canal, open free to the people of Paddington, for loading and unloading goods. It is certain that the old road to Harrow was never leased to the Grand Junction Canal Company; but a wharf, upwards of one hundred feet wide, now exists on a portion of that road; and, as I am informed, the rent of this wharf is not received by the parish. I was promised, twelve months since, that the claims of the parish to this wharf should he inquired into; but as yet no such inquiry has been made.
At the western extremity of the parish, there is an artesian well, to which the name of “the Western Water Works” has been given; the water from which supplies the houses, which have been built on that clayey district. The west Middlesex, and the Grand Junction Water Works Companies supply the other parts of the parish.
The Imperial Gas Company have supplied the parish with gas, since its first introduction into Paddington, in 1824.
A new station and hotel, now nearly finished, will make a fine terminus to the Great Western Railway; and add to the many showy buildings, which have been erected in Paddington, within the last few years.
CHAPTER V.
A REVIEW OF THE CONDITION OF THE PARISH AND THE PEOPLE, AT VARIOUS PERIODS OF THEIR HISTORY.
Those people who have been the most completely governed by ecclesiastics, are proverbial for having made the slowest progress in all the elements of knowledge which concern man; and the people of Paddington formed no exception to that rule which has been found to hold good in other places. Here, as elsewhere, the spiritual governors of the people made but poor attempts to develope the mind; and those to whom they deputed this duty, took care to follow the example set them by their superiors.
To keep the breath of life, the living soul, under subjection by the agency of superstitious dogmas and by threats of everlasting punishment, was attempted for ages, and is even now attempted; but the world is freeing itself from the government of organised crafts; and it will soon be useless—in spite of all the vain efforts which are now being made—to attempt to teach the people that the greatest virtue is to believe and obey, without the exercise of reason; and that the greatest vice consists in doubting the power of symbols to save.
Although the people of Paddington lived at so short a distance from the two rich cathedral marts of London and Westminster, they made no greater advances in civilization for many centuries, than did those who lived in the most remote village in England. The few people who did live here, were wholly agricultural; and they owed every useful lesson of their lives, much more to their own intelligence and observation, than to any instruction given them by those who were well paid to be their teachers.