LAST PUBLIC LETTER WRITER

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 26, 25 October 1921, Page 8

LAST PUBLIC LETTER WRITER

Paris can boast that it probably has' the last public letter writer among civilised nations. In a little shanty on ground loaned by the city until his' death, Edouard Faes. aged 70. carries on the profession inherited from his grandfather. Although tho capital’s percentage of illiteracy is exceedingly small, not a day passes that Faes does not perform some scribal task for his clients, residing chieiiv in' the poorest district of the city. His labours range from writing love-letters for illiterate swains or amorous maidens who wouldn’t: think of asking the parish cures to help their love affairs, to drawing up wills for his neighhours, or preparing applications for divorce. Although ho never took a. collegiate degree, Faes is recognised by tho police as a veritable authority nn all local matters, nnd more than once lias been called in to givo advice on ticklish questions when the public prosecutor was not available. Like his grandfather, Faes does all his writing with a gold pen, unless his clients demand typewritten documents, for which event an early model caligraph machine is brought from behind piles of dusty dossiers and tap-; ped laboriously, Faes insisting that he can write with a pen by watching the letters, but that modern inventions are too much for his waning eyesight. Under an old law Facs is not allowed to charge’ for his services, but his grateful clients remunerate him liberally enough, to keep the wolf from the door.