OBITUARY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2047, 26 November 1907, Page 2

OBITUARY.

- MR. HUGH GTTLLY. Press Association. WELLINGTON, Nov. 25. Obituary: Mr. Hugh Gully, tho well-known barrister.

(Special to Times. ) WELLINGTON, Nov. 25. Mr. Gully’s death, will be deplored by a very large circle of friends in i Wellington and many other parte of the Dominion. He was the son of the celebrated New Zealand water-oolor - artist. He had a brilliant career at Nelson College, and afterwards in hia study and practice of the law. Some idea of the man can he gained from the following “Appreciation bv One Who .Knew Him” (it is from ito-nagjht’s '* Post): —“The legal profession has lost not only one of its most brilliant members, but a kindly, chivalrous,' • honorable, and accomplished gentleman at the Bar no less than in other walks of life. The qualities that make for success are not always those which make a man worthy of love and honor. The lawyer is- necessarily brought in close contact with the seamy side of life and the wickedness of human nature, and in Court his frequent endeavors to make the worse appear the better reason, and the constant temptation to suppress or distort inconvenient truths must oftimpose a severe strain even upc strongest character. Of Mr " tho may safely be said not - • tluDy it rose superior to tb«- 0,1 b’ that he and other warpinr' . ~ se - temptations profession, but-*’ 1 •= influences of hia an effort, O -nut he did so without as an ii> f jenhis has been defined pains: ' -unite capability tor taking : but it is at least equally true *• .u in its highest flights genius has ,110 ajipearance of proceeding without conscious effort and with all the inevitableness of natural law. This natural and inevitable quality was characteristic of all Mr. Gully’s work. Without prodigious industry such eminence as 110 had attained at the Bar could never have been reached; but nobody ever did so with less apparent effort. Everything seemed to come easy to him, and doubtless this was a large part of the secret of his success. 111 his hands the weakest part of a case often made the strongest appeal, especially if there was a jury to deal with; a client’s gravest delect became an amiable failing which almost assumed the air of a merit; and the weaknesses of tho other side were exposed with a thoroughness which by remaining equally suave never reached tho dangerous reaction that ruthless polemics are apt to bring in their train. Combined with this winning suavity and a rare knowledge of the world and of human nature which made him so powerful with a jury, Mr. Gully also had tho i learning, tho subtlety, and tho argumentative ]iower that appeal to the judicial mind, and whether in Banco 011 in nisi prisi an unfailing senseof proportion seomed always to tell him just what lino to take and how far to follow it. A high standard of honor, a ready wit, a keen sense of humor, a good temper, which;'tho most desxieratb of forlorn hopes could never ruffle, and a culture worthy of tho son of 0110 of New Zealand’s most distinguished men—theso were among the other qualities which made tho man whom the Bar of New Zealand is mourning to-day one of the most popular of gentlemen as well as among the ablest of advocates. The fear ■ that the amalgamation of t-lie two branches of the legal profession may affect practitioners with too much of tho passion of tho partisan receives no encouragement from this splendid typo of the Now Zealand-made lawyer.”