Before anyone is allowed to drive a motor car or lorry in Wellington that person must have a driver's license, and to get one the driver has to earn it under the eye of the inspector (says the Dominion). It is in that process that trouble not infrequently occurs. ``Most of them say they can drive when they come here,'' said the official. ``Sometimes they can - sometimes they can't. One returned soldier told me that he was a good driver, and had driven in France. I was prepared to believe him until he went full-tilt into a post opposite the Wellington Club on the Terrace (after rounding the corner from Woodward Street), and threw me clean out of the car. When I looked up his head was sticking through a gaping hole in the wind-shield. The radiator was crumpled up like a paper bag, and the engine badly damaged. On another occasion I was testing the driver of a heavy lorry, and he was just about to charge a shop window in Willis Street when I jerked the wheel round and turned the car's head out across the road, an act which saved the lorry and earned me the torrid abuse of a tarraway motorman, who thought I was to blame. Another of my clients was a Chinaman - the Chinamen are going in a good deal for light lorries. He also said he could drive all right. We were going along Courtenay Place on the tram track when the gong of a following car sounded again and again. I told the Chinaman to pull over, and he did so with such success that we made the footpath outside the Gas Company's offices. I shouted to the people on the path to look out, jammed the wheel round, and we sailed along the pavement for a bit, until we could make the road again with safety. I tell you it's not all fun testing for licenses.''
Girls' education
The New Zealand Gazette contains a notification by the Minster of Education of his approval, on the advice of the General Council of Education, of the following amendment to the schemes of control of a number of secondary schools, including the Otago Girls' High School: - ``The programme of each pupil shall be determined by the principal after consultation with the parents or guardian, but in all cases the programme of each girl shall include adequate instruction in elementary domestic science and hygiene, and in one or more of the domestic arts, extending in general over not less than two years of the secondary course provided. No pupil shall be more compelled to take Latin or to take more than one language besides English.''
Bonuses get results
A business man in Wanganui expresses himself as satisfied with his experience in giving his assistants a direct interest in the firm's profits. Speaking to a Wanganui Herald reporter, he said that about a year ago he marked a good month's business by giving each assistant a bonus in the shape of an extra week's wages, and has repeated the bonus several times since. A record month in April last was made the occasion for another similar bonus, with the promise that, if May's business was as good, the same reward for assiduity would follow.
Standard half-holiday
During the past 12 months a number of Milton shopkeepers have observed Saturday half-holiday, whilst others were closing on Wednesday. The former have now reverted to the Wednesday observance, and the change is welcomed by the residents of the town and country.
- ODT, 22.6.1919
