"LOVABLE CHARACTER"

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 51, 5 March 1929, Page 8

"LOVABLE CHARACTER"

■ (By Telegraph.) (Spatial to "The Evening Post.") DUNEDIN, This Day. Eloquent tributes were paid to the memory of the late Sir Charles Skerrett in the Supreme Court yesterday before a large gathering of members of the Otago Law Society, whose president (Mr. H. L. Cook) addressed the Court. His Honour Mr. Justico MaeGregor presided, and among those present were Messrs. J. H. Bartholomew and H. W. Bundle, Stipendiary Magistrates. After.Mr. Cook hud spoken on behalf of the Otago Law Society, Mr. Justice MaeGregor said: "Although some weeks have elapsed since the tragic death of our late Chief Justice, this is the earliest opportunity of making public reference to -that sad event in the Supreme Court at Dunedin. The premature death of Sir Charles Skerrett is indeed a p'ermanent_ loss io this Dominion. His place on the Bench and off it will be-hard to fill. Ho was a great advocate, arid made fair in due time to become a great Judge. But it was not to be. , Providence in its infinito wisdom lias decreed otherwise, and we arc now left to carry on as best we may without his wise counsel and genial presence. "A learned lawyer, a warm-hearted friend, and a generous' opponent, he carved out for himself a brilliant career, which has now been cut off at its very crowning by the hand of ironic fate; but he has left behind him to his brethren at the Bar and on the Bench of New Zealand a High example of integrity and of courage and of industry and to his personal friends, and they are many, there remains but the undying memory of 'Charles Skerrett,' as he was in his prime. He was a lovable character. Of him, indeed, it may with truth he said: 'To live in hearts wo leave behind is not .to die.' "