MR. JUSTICE WRIGHT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1695, 24 August 1904, Page 62

MR. JUSTICE WRIGHT.

SOME PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. A cable message from London announces the death, in the prime of life, of the Hon George Wright, until recently a Judge of the Court of King’s Bench in Ireland, and for many years one of the most brilliant of the many brilliant advooates on the Munster Circuit. Mr Wright was a member of a wellknown County Cork family. A brother, Mr H. V. Wright, has filled the post of Crown Solicitor for the city and county of Cork for some years, while tho late Judge was for a considerable time one of the Crown Prosecutors for the same place, as well as for the city and county of Dublin. Although staunch Unionists in politics, and as such opposed to the national aspirations of the great majority of their fellow- countrymen, the Wrights never obtruded their political leanings unnecessarily or offensively on those who held opposite views, and even when called upon to discharge tho somewhat disagreeable duties which frequently fall to the lot of Crown Prosecutors in Ireland, they displayed the greatest possible tact and consideration for the feelings of those with whom they were brought into official conflict. Few practitioners at the Irish Bar were more personally popular than the late Judge. At school ho displayed brilliant qualities, and in due course matriculated with honour.! at Trinity College, Dublin. Selecting the Bar as a profession, he ate dinners at the King’s Inns, Dublin, and on being called, chose the Munster Circuit. There he made his way to the front rank among’ th© forensic luminaries who were his contemporaries—Seymour Bushe, K.C., T. L. O’Shaughnessy, K.C., T. M. Healy, K. 0., Redmond Barry, K.C.,_ Sir Edward Carson, K.C. (now Solicitor-General for England), Brereton Barry, K.C., and many others of minor note. Air Wright speedily came to be recognised as one of the keenest cross-examiners and most convincing-; pleaders with a jury that the Irish Bar possessed. Small of stature, with piercing eyes, and a rather agree-able-looking, clean-shaven countenance, when ho fixed his monocle upon a quibbling witness, the Court instinctively felt that tho man who had hoped to succeed by prevarication had leckoned without his host, and by the time Mr Wright had sat down, his unhappy adversary in the forensio duel generally wished himself somewhere else. Without any of the domineering air o; bullying tactics of Carson, or the dramatic style or classic oratory of Bushe, Mr Wright succeeded by having a practical knowledge of his profession and of the inner workings of the social conditions in his native land. Ho always went straight to the point; and held to it, with a dogged persistency which made him an unfailing favourite with Judges and juries. He was a born hater of prosiness and irrelevancy; his mind, ever alert, was always quick to grasp even the most tedious details of a complicated legal problem; and both at the Bar and on th© Bench his efforts were ever so directed that the administration of the law should be shorn as much as possible of its proverbial tardiness, and that those who invoked its aid should have speedy justiod dispensed to them. In a country the wit of whose advocates is of world-wide repute, he shone with particular brilliancy, and many a dry nisi prius action or hum-drum appeal from a County Court Judge was illumined Jby the flashes of humour which his active and versatile brain" evolved from commonplace materials. There were few great cases of note in the Irish Courts during the twenty years preceding 1901 in which George Wright was not briefed. One of these in particular which attracted worldwide notoriety at the time was what was known as the Birr military scandal. On the night of July 11th, 1894, a party of young militia officers, assembled for their annual training at Birr Military Barracks, King’s County, under the in-, spiring influences of a champagne dinner, raided the quarters of SurgeonMajor Fox, the resident military doctor, after battering in the doors of his apartments with a stable ladder. Two of his female domestics, rudely roused from slumber, screamed loudly, and. in their terror, broke one of the windows. As a result tho corporal of the guard and a file of men came on the scene, but the sportive subalterns were beating a retreat at the time, and owing, probably, to the overawing influence of their military rank, they were not arrested. However, the matter leaked out the following day, with, the result that the civiL authorities took action and obtained informations from the girls against Lieutenants Gibson, Moore, Saunders, Sheppard, Weldon, and Smith —six officers —and the present Sir Andrew Armstrong, Bart., who recently toured New Zealand, and who happened to be a guest at the officers’ mess on the night in question. The most extraordinary "efforts were made to have the proceedings quashed, owing to the social position of the accused one of whom was a nephew to the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, but these efforts failed, and the prosecution duly caine before the locai petty sessions. After hearing the evidence, the

forward the case for trial or refusing informations, and, that being so, “no rule ” was entered in the records. However, the Attorney-General sent up an indictment against the officers, and Sir Andrew (then Captain) Armstrong, at the following quarter sessions, and the Grand Jury returned a “ true bill ” against the hatch. The prosecution was conducted by Mr M. 0. Mclnorney, K.C., while the defendants were defended by All* Wright. It was remarkable as one'of the few notable occasions on which he did not appear on the Crown side, but the fact was accounted for by the Liberal Government being in office at the time. After an exceptionally brilliant defence, Mr Wright secured the acquittal of his clients. All* Wright filled the post of SolicitorGeneral for Ireland under the present Government between 1900 and 1901, and in the latter year he was elevated to the Bench. His * retirement took place but a few weeks ago, as he had arranged to go on circuit for the summer assizes. " As one of the youngest, ablest, and, personally, most popular members of the High Court of Justice in Ireland, his sudden removal will be deeply deplored.