N.Z.'S LAST CABBY?

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 365, 29 October 1932, Page 6

N.Z.'S LAST CABBY?

VETERAN OF WARS DRIVER OF MASTERTON'S SOLE SURVIVING FOUR-WHEELER. STILL IN SERVICE. Few people in Masterton are better known and know more about the town and its doings than Mr. Jack Wallace, the veteran "cabby," who still conducts a regular business with his familiar landau and pair. Mr. Wallace believes that he is the last "cabby" in New Zealand to be driving a fourwheeler, though he says that he h'as heard there are yet one or two hansom cabs in Chrsitehurch. Yeteran of two wars, the Boer and the Great, Mr. Wallace first took up his stand in Masterton when he returned from South Afriea, now more than 30 years ago. Since then, with the 'exception of three and a half years overseas after 1914, he has plied for hire in Masterton regularly. Competition is his early days was keen, he says. At the beginning of the century the town boasted of close on thirty cabs, and of this number one only remains to-day. Mr. Wallace was not without opposition from horse-drawn vehicles until about a year ago, but now he is completely on his own, but for . . . the taxis, Mr. Wallace reeeives the big majority of his patronage from the commercial travellers — they never fail him. He is always down at the train to meet them, as he has done for thirty years, and in nearly every case he reeeives the "job" from his old customers, in preference to the modern "shilling-a-miler. " He states that at present he entertains no thought of giving up business, antiquated though it may seem to people living in the big cities. The horses are veterans, too, both having seen a good seventeen summers. Though not so smart as in days gone by, they can still rattle along at a goodly pace, and look to the uninitiated good for a few more years to come.