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Crowther were the two that did most to create public opinion at Rhydlewis. A great respect for them still remains in the district.' As for the author, 'the strong, silent men of Rhydlewis regard him as beneath contempt. Only one thing perplexes me now, and that is how such a pervert as Mr Caradoc Evans can ever have risen from among such people.' The assault delighted Wales. For the periodicals Seren Cymru and Y Darian it was a necessary demolition job, since Evans was providing 'a feast for the English, who love to live on filth'.26 J. Dyfnallt Owen, poet and Congregational minister, expressed his 'deepest appreciation' for the Western Mails service to Wales: Jones's articles were the first coherent answer to Caradoc Evans 'based on a thorough knowledge of Welsh life'. John Crowther likewise gave thanks: Evans's characters existed 'only in the perverted imagination of the author'.27 Caradoc of course responded, and in characteristic fashion, explaining first to a London paper that the nearest Rhydlewis pub was indeed two miles away through the fields. It was appreciably less by road. I go there by road; the villagers creep by the hedges in the fields and they do their drinking in the small pigsty or cow house at the back of the inn. I drink in the inn kitchen because of the peaceful company I find there. If I wanted a riot I would get a heap of it at chapel. Perhaps I would join the night gang, the chief purpose of the members of which is to uproot their enemies apple trees, smash windows, and coat doors with dung or coal tar. Last August the enemy was one of the two preachers in Rhydlewis. [Mr Jones] refers to my schooldays. I left school at the age of thirteen, knowing nothing. He reminded me of the late respected David Adams, the slim, tyrannical red-haired preacher, whose presence on the road caused children to clamber over the hedges to escape his wrath; and grown-up people who feigned delight in his talk found real joy in cursing him when he had passed on. Mr Adams is the hero of my story about the old woman who ate rats in order to save a sovereign to buy him a Bible.28 The interview sets the tone for Evans's Western Mail reply (28 July). He begins with Jones's arrival in the village. On a rainy night the people of Rhydlewis heard the sound of a motor-car on the Henllan road, whereupon some moved to their doors and some stood at their windows, all stretching their necks, widening their nostrils, and opening their eyes; and when the car was upon them and they beheld a stranger within it, these words issued at their lips: 'Who is the boy bach? And what shall we say he wants?' The boy bach said his name was J.T. Jones, his home was Anglesey, and 26 Western Mail, 25 July 1924, 6. 27 Letters by Owen and Crowther appear in the Western Mail, 26 July 1924, 6. 28 People, 20 July 1924, 13.