These cautious provisions seem to have been prophetic, for Rye _did_ actually at some uncertain time lose the money, which was then received by Northiam until Midsummer, 1799, when, from some dereliction of duty, it passed, as directed, to Newenden. Disputes then appear to have arisen, for in 1804 the Merchant Taylors, not quite sure of their position, refused any longer to pay the amount until a legal decision was arrived at. The whole matter then remained in abeyance, as probably being too small a sum to worry about, until 1819. By that time the twenty years’ accumulation was worth having, and the inhabitants of Rye, Northiam, and Newenden accordingly joined forces and petitioned the Merchant Taylors, praying them to disburse the money to Rye, which was done, the vicar and churchwardens of that town in turn handing it over to the commissioners of the turnpike road from Flimwell to Rye. The sum of £140 was then paid over, from which the Land Tax authorities sweated £28, twenty years’ land-tax, at 28_s._ a year. Flimwell is the point where the road to Rye branches from the Hastings Road. Nineteen and a half miles of road, therefore, appear by this decision to have been cut off from these small mercies. The trifling sum now trickles into the revenue of the Kent County Council. River Hill was once—in the days of inefficient brake-power—a terror to cyclists. A terror with reason, for it is three-quarters of a mile long, and not straight; and it has notoriously been the scene of many accidents at the two sharp turns in its course—one left and one right. A joint C.T.C. and N.C.U. danger-board at the beginning is supplemented by the notice that it is unrideable without a brake; but that is as may be. When the first chapter of cycling was being enacted, an early wheelman rode it, quite inadvertently, and lived to tell the tale, in picturesque fashion. In the ancient days of cycling, when it had not long ceased to he “velocipeding” and was still in the intermediate stage of “bicycling,” this greatly daring person decided to ride from Greenwich to Burwash—some fifty miles—on what was then, with the most exquisite appropriateness, called a “bone-shaker.” It was so unusual and adventurous a thing to do that he wrote an account of it, and it duly appears in the records of that time. He thought how splendid a thing it would be to run hundreds of miles about the country at “a speed of from ten to fourteen miles an hour,” as in the advertisements, and so purchased what he thought to be a very camelopard of a machine, with 45-in. wheels.