front of the damaged wall, parallel thereto, and six rods in length, the charge to be 5/3 per foot run. For the repair of the wall itself a tender £47 ((illegible text) see below) was received from Messrs. Scott and Homan, but its execution was to be deferred until the more general repairs were fully considered. Mr. Carey paid £30 towards his charges for groyning operations, and Mr. Barnes was paid £51 for similar work. Scott and Homan's offer was also accepted to repair the first breach for a sum of £23, whilst instead of executing their previous contract, an order was given them to take down what was left of the damaged wall and to safely deposit the materials until some economic plan could be devised for using them to preserve a line of path parallel with the road between the seven houses and the Sussex hotel. Another sum was to be paid to them of £65 for work already done, and a further sum of £23 17s 3d was to be handed over to Messrs. C. & R. Deudney for bricks and faggots.
But the Commissioners' troubles with "Old Davy" were a long way from being at an end. The truth is that the founder of st. Leonards had committed the same error in his desire to have a St. Leonards on the sea instead of by the sea, as the several founders of Hastings had done in their attempts to rebuild their Premier Cinque-Port on the beach instead of by the beach. They had all encroached upon the domains of Neptune, and the briny deity made them pay the penalty of their folly whenever the turbulent mood came upon him. Thus it was that as soon as they had fenced him in at one place, he broke through at another. But the battle once begun, the land-lubbers could not retreat with honour until every manoeuvre had been tried or their forces exhausted. In the last conflict, they had been woefully worsted and a more serious breach than usual had been made in their defences. Their next move, therefore, was to collect the scattered fragments of the shattered breastwork and to temporarily repair damages. For this work they had again to draw from their almost empty treasure-chest as follows :- £10 17s to James Hyland, for the carting of stone saved from the debris; £2 2s to Stephen Eldridge, for a temporary groyne, and £4 8s 9d to Deudney & Co., for faggots. Then at their meeting, on the 26th of September, Messrs. Scott and Homan presented an additional account of £26 6s 8d for underpinning and repairing the wall further eastward. These builders, together with Mr. Carey were also taken into consultation as to what was the next thing to be done; and it was decided to drive down a number of piles, 6 to 8 feet long and 18 inches apart, from the "return" wall, near the church, to the Sussex hotel, the same to be backed up with the loose sandstone then lying by the roadside, so as to form a slope up to the level of the road, and distant therefrom about five yards. It was further proposed to build a "dry" seawall, between the same points, inclining at an angle of 45 degrees, and about ten feel high. These works were not completed however; for at their next meeting (adjourned from Christmas Eve), it was decided to suspend operations until a more convenient season. In the meantime, Mr. George Scott had been employed to form a double fence of faggots, three and six feet, respectively, southwards of the wall; and the beach had accumulated as far as the fence reached, to the top of the faggots. An order was then given to extend this means of protection to a distance of about 600 feet.
Money, Money, Money! was still the cry in 1836, and at length an arrangement was made by Messs. Burton and Fraser with Mr. Duckworth for the loan of £600, which enabled the Commissioners to repay, with interest the £250 which the treasurer had repeatedly demanded during the two preceding years. But a difficulty awaited the Board in the fact that Mr. Leave, the surveyor, had tendered his resignation. His services were more than ever needed just at that time, but the resignation had to be accepted, and the office was afterwards temporarily filled by Mr. Charles Deudney. Another difficulty - and not an uncommon one - was that of securing payment of the rates. Only half the assessment had been collected, notwithstanding that a threat of summoning the defaulters had been repeatedly made. The arrears of rates, so considerable, were chiefly among the tradesmen and shop-keepers of the Marina, South Colonnade, East ascent and the Mercatoria - persons who have not now a habitation or a name in the town - and several of whom had to be excused on account of their alleged poverty; an allegation which was unfortunately supported by subsequent failures. When my readers learn - as they will do further on - that the town was fuller of aristocratic visitors during the autumn of 1836 than it had been before they will wonder why the commercial situation was so disappointing. There is but one explanation, and that is the one which I have before given; namely, that whilst the majority of the visitors and inhabitants went to Hastings to make their purchases, the shop-keepers (butchers, poulterers and greengrocers excepted), having also to draw their supplies mainly from Hastings, were unable, with their slender stocks and half profits, to compete successfully with the tradesmen of the old town. The fact was as palpable as the light of day that commercial reciprocity between the two towns was practically unknown. I could show, by numerous examples, that whilst from the relations of the two towns as well as from the dispositions of the inhabitants, the money flowed fast and freely into the old town, there was no turning in the current to carry it back again. The West went continually to the East to buy, whilst the East never went to the West except to sell. Many changes have necessarily taken place in a period of sixty years, yet the commercial relations here described still exist, although in a greatly modified form. It would have been well for a late member of the Town Council if he had realised this fact, rather than to have uttered the erroneous statement that "St. Leonards had always been a millstone on the neck of Hastings." It would also have been a reasonable request that some few other persons who had charged St. Leonards with having been a burthen (sic) to Hastings to recognise facts and reverse their verdict.
But, to return to the difficulty of collecting the rates, it should be stated that during the off-season of April. May, June and July, many of the houses were empty, and for these the proprietors or their agents refused to pay the assessment. Several unsatisfactory interviews took place, and at length a case was submitted to Mr. Earle for Counsel's opinion. This opinion was that half-rates should be demanded in such cases. The demand being resisted by Mr. Scrivens, Mr. Watson and others, on behalf of themselves or their clients, Mr. Fitzroy Kelly, another K.C., was applied to for an opinion, who more than confirmed Mr. Earle's opinion. The objectors still demurred, but on being threatened with an action at law, they accepted Mr. Earle's decision of half-rates, and immediately settled the matter. The Commissioners who mostly attended the meetings during 1836 were Major Jeffries, and Messrs. J. Burton, D. Burton, A. Burton, Wood, Greenough, C. Deudney, R. Deudney, J. Rock, and C. H. Southall. Two or three of the meetings were also attended by Mr. Howard Elphinstone, when that gentleman was released from his parliamentary duties.
Among the minor transactions of the Commissions in 1836 was the relinquishment of the beadle's tenance at the East gate, or Archway lodge. Bumbledom had been invaded by the police force, and the occupation of Harman, the high and mighty beadle of St. Leonards, was gone. At the May monthly meeting of the Hastings Town Council the Police establishment was decided on, and on the first of July following, the policemen, 13 in number, went on duty for the first time. This force, which included the Inspector, was regarded as being too small for a borough of the size of Hastings, even in 1836; and if, with greater efficiency and more than four times that number in the present day, the force is deemed to be barely sufficient for its requirements, the opinion then expressed may have been well founded. One thing was quite evident, namely, the necessity for the better protection to life and property. It was only a few nights before the police were appointed that a fire broke out at the shop of Mr. Walmsley, a hatter, in Commercial road, whilst on the same evening, a lodger of Mrs. Jordan's, at 4 Beach cottages, accidentally set the curtains on fire, and when it arrived, those who were in charge of it knew nothing of its construction. Had there been no prompter and more efficient manual assistance at hand the house might have been burnt to the ground, and the adjoining property have suffered a similar fate. It was then said "Surely, as we are now to have policemen, they will be taught the use of fire-engines; otherwise, the several parishes will have to combine to engage a set of firemen for the town." Very little, however, was done in this way until the St. Leonards Commissioners and townspeople moved in the matter, which movement will be described in the proper time. But even this was excelled, many years after, by Mr. Glenister, Superintendent of the Police-force, who at the suggestion of a few men, mainly of St. Leonards, initiated a Volunteer Fire Brigade, which has since become the model for numerous similar organizations in different parts of the country.
Yet there was something more, as may be supposed, for the Police-force to do than that of assisting to put out fires. It was on the 10th or 11th of March, in that Year, that Messrs. Pittock's drapery warehouse at Wellington place, was forcibly entered during the night and £400 worth of silks and other goods carried off. The burglary was effected by taking down a shutter and breaking a square of glass. Many other burglaries and robberies were committed about the same time, some of which might probably have been prevented, or the guilty parties detected, had a police system been sooner in vogue. It was hardly possible, however, that twelve policemen and an inspector - still less the beadles and watchmen previously existent - could have prevented the many other ills to which flesh is heir. They might lessen the number of offences, but they could have little or not control over occurrences of an accidental nature; to whit, they had been about two months installed in the new office when a young lady visitor fell over the Castle cliff, and when - on the same day- Mr. Hughes, of St. Leonards, sustained a fractured leg and other serious injuries though a fall whilst in the act of getting upon one of the coaches, and the wheels of the coach passing over his body. It may be mentioned, incidentally, that a singular series of accidents befel the family of Mr. Hughes,43 years after the accident here described, the singularity being in the fact that his widow, his son and his daughter, fractured a wrist each, by variously accidental means.
