Mid Sussex Times Tuesday October 6 1888

OUR CUCKFIELD CORRESPONDENT who grumbled last week about church bells, dogs, and other matters, begs to apologise, as he has been advised that hitting too near the truth is unpalatable and adds: being desirous to investigate hidden secrets of archaeology I read in a Sussex daily paper that an enterprising rambler had, like 

The King of France with 20,000 men

Marched up the hill, and then marched down again, 

and on coming down from Ansty made an astonishing discovery at Highbridge of a ravine and cave where the smugglers, 100 years ago, deposited their illicit spoils safe from the prying eye of the excise man, and being stimulated by an ardent desire to trace out the secret, in hopes of discovering a left behind and forgotten keg or two of brandy or Geneva, improved by age, armed with a penknife and walking stick, I started on the voyage of discovery.

Arrived at the spot where Rambler surmises or led me to surmise, these choice treasures lie hid, I took a leisurely survey and finding several mounds of earth at the foot of what I decided to be the remains of an ancient wall that hid the entrance to the cave – having read in books how cunningly the freebooters of a former age disguise their places of resort, and concealed their ill gotten booty – accordingly I took a quiet and acute survey, being convinced that I had found the ravine, although I had no idea of it being a ravine according to the usual acceptation of the word; and on casting my eyes over the side of the wall, I perceived an orifice or crevice, that I at once concluded led by a removal of intervening obstacles to the cave beyond. 

Climbing up the almost perpendicular height I was busily engaged in investigating this mysterious opening when I was saluted by a passerby, who exclaimed, "hello, old fellow, what are you up to?". 

I explained, when he burst out in a horse laugh, observing gleefully "come down, you old fool; it is nothing but a rabbit hole." I retorted that rabbits did not make the excavations or build the wall, but this only increased his risibility, which subsiding after a few minutes - paying me a not very complimentary tribute for intelligence – he stated that it was the old sandpit I had been investigating, where only a few years since the stone was dug to raise the bridge where Ansty and Highbridge hills were lowered. 

I must allow that I felt uncommonly mean and little in an intellectual sense as I slipped down from my perch, and I don't think if Rambler was to publish a discovery of the antediluvian remains of a race of Giants who inhabited the Weald "when time was young" it would induce me to seek after antiquarian trifles in future.