meetings were taking the place of riots, partly due to the farmers scaling back on violent activity, and also due to the increasing presence of troop numbers. Another major factor that saw the riots reduce were the activities of a group of petty criminals masquerading as Rebecca operating from Five Roads near Llanelli. This group, led by known trouble-maker John Jones (Shoni Sguborfawr) and his associate David Davies (Dai'r Cantwr), who were eventually convicted and transported to Australia, turned more respectable people away from Rebecca. Jones, unlike Davies, was not convicted of crimes during the riots, but for a later assault charge. Aftermath By late 1843, the riots had stopped. Although Rebecca had failed to produce an immediate effect on the lives of the farmers she had sought to serve, the very nature of a leaderless uprising of the downtrodden peasantry in an attempt to obtain justice from an unfair system, was an important socio-political event within Wales. In the aftermath of the riots, some rent reductions were achieved, the toll rates were improved (although destroyed toll-houses were rebuilt) and the protests prompted several reforms, including a Royal Commission into the question of toll roads, which led to the Turnpikes, South Wales Act 1844. This Act consolidated the trusts, simplified the rates and reduced the hated toll on lime movement by half. More importantly, the riots inspired later Welsh protests. These included opposition to the privatisation of salmon reserves on the River Wye in the 1860s and 70s, which became known as 'the second Rebecca riots', and the formation in the 1970s of the radical arts collective known as the Beca group. As late as December 1910, the historic horn used to gather the Rebeccaites was sounded during the General Election campaign to signify the arrival of the car carrying Liberal candidate John Hinds for a meeting at Bethania Chapel, Talog. In popular culture The Rebecca Riots were the setting for the novel Hosts of Rebecca by Alexander Cordell. One of the earliest novels about the Rebecca Riots was written by Welsh author Amy Dillwyn, who wrote The Rebecca Rioter, first published in 1880. The Rebecca Riots play an important part in the plot of the novel The Sheep-stealers by Violet Jacob, first published in 1902. A more recent novel is Children of Rebecca by Vivien Annis Bailey, published by Honno in 1995. In 1948 Dylan Thomas wrote the screenplay