But assisted by ‘Foul-weather-Jack’ from the south,
You show your white teeth and you foam at the mouth.
Don’t think that I’ll help you; it don’t suit my whim;
You care not who sinketh, so long as you swim;
Sou’-westers and zephyrs may come to your aid,
But Boreas never, until he is made.
The Hastings regattas I’ve sometimes befriended –
Then why with St. Leonards should I be offended?
I’ll willingly help the brave men who have rowed,
But to help Davey Jones, if I do I’ll be blowed!”
Another Postponement. – The next day appointed was the 8th of August, a fortnight later than the one originally fixed upon, and which the committee fervently, but vainly hoped would have proved more auspicious. Up to that time all seemed to be of good promise, but at sun-rise on the selected day, the committee discovered that they were again doomed to disappointment. The attraction of the sun and moon (the latter near her perigee) and the mal-influence of the planetary configuarations(sic) which were pointed out in two numbers of Brett’s Gazette were too surely realised, and the event was for a second time deferred. The committee now no longer doubted that by following the example repeatedly set before them by their Hastings friends of fortnight postponements, they had committed an error.
Success at Last. It was now resolved that the regatta should be held on the first favourable day, and that happened to be on the following Saturday. The committee regretted the necessity of holding it on so busy a day; but, apart from that circumstance, the racing, the weather, the attendance, the animated scenes on the water, the excellent accommodation of the grand stand, and the general arrangements were all that could be desired.
Land Slips
During the rapid thaw which set in at the very threshold of the year, several tons of earth became detached from the cliff at the western part of St. Leonards, and fell in crumbling masses to the base of the said cliff abutting the road. At several points between the caves and the Terminus hotel at Bopeep there were traces of an “avalanche”, but, fortunately, out of the range of houses in that locality. It was well that not long previously much of the cliff was cut down in the rear of the buildings known as the Marina Inn and Cave Cottages, or they might have been damaged, as they were at two or three later periods, one of which was Feb. 24th 1876, and another was Nov. 27th, 1880.
