THE CHIEF JUSTICE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LVI, Issue 8628, 10 December 1906, Page 5

THE CHIEF JUSTICE.

How he Took to the Law.

It is Just thirty-nine years since Sir Robert Stout entered into the study of law. In the course of his remarks at the Law Students' Association's dinner, the Chief Justice said his entry into the legal profession was a, mere accident. He never intended to be a lawyer at all. He came to the colony to be a surveyor, and when he could not get a position as a surveyor, he became mathematical master in a grammar school. And he supposed he would have been a teacher at the present day, had it not been that he was not musical. At that time, his Honour explained, one could not get a position as head master in Olago if he could not teach music. There was another accident which came in the way. One of the lawyers down South had a clerk who, unfortunately, got drunk. This lawyer met Sir Robert in the street and told him his clerk was drunk, and that hb could not get another. " I will become your clerk, if you will take me," answered his Honour. Within a quarter of an hour the matter was settled. During the first year at the law, his Honour worked on an average —Saturday and Sunday included—fourteen hours a day. He studied so that he might pass his examinations within three years, and he passed them two or three months after that time, when the time for the final examination came round.