RETIRING JUDGE PAYS TRIBUTE TO HIS PARENTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 February 1949, Page 4

RETIRING JUDGE PAYS TRIBUTE TO HIS PARENTS

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, This Day. A touching tribute to his parents—“unswerving love on the part of my mother” —was paid by Mr Justice Christie on his retirement today from the Supreme Court bench. In making what fie termed his “second swan song” in his life, his Honor -was replying to tributes from the bar.

“There were J-not many silver spoons in the home in which I was brought up/’ he said, “but I had something which I feel some children of today will lack—careful instruction in moral principles. I can understand ‘The Cotter’s Saturday Night,’ although with us it was Sunday night. . “I was brought up on the Catechism, the New Testament, the metrical version of the Psalms of

David, and the Golden Rule, with occasional applications of the leather belt. With such a Presbyterian upbringing, I feel it is a real triumph of moral restraint that I have never once used the word ‘sin’ when I mean ‘crime.’ I have never felt divorced even from the criminal in the dock. Always I thought that we are all bound by the common tie of humanity.” His Honor also acknowledged his indebtedness to his wife for her encouragement and help.