they must have been the property of the exhibitor, the first prize was won by Mrs. Ruth Farmer, whose bay mare, aged twenty, had been in constant work for seventeen years.
Prizes were also offered for cabmen who had retained their badges and been exempt for the longest period from any charge of cruelty to animals, reckless driving, drunkenness or any other offence, and who had constantly driven for upwards of ten years. The winner of the first prize had been a cab-driver for forty-six years.
The long service and good conduct prize was awarded to a cabman who had been for thirty-five years in the service of his master, and the Temperance prize was won by a driver who had been a teetotaler for twenty-nine years.
Strikes, and threats to strike, have been exceedingly numerous since 1853. On some occasions the cabmen objected to Government regulations, and on others their quarrels were with the cab proprietors. It had been the complaint of cabmen, for very many years, that the prices charged by proprietors for the hire of their cabs were too high, and in May, 1894, they determined to make a strenuous effort to get them reduced.
