Norwich bulletin., 1918-03-14
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Relief Fund For the Permanent Blind

Relief Fund For the Permanent Blind
 MT. Editor: Early in January blind soldier entered the offices of a Paris newspaper and asked to see the edi- tor. When ushered into his presence he saluted and stood at attention. The kindliest efforts of the editor to in- duce him to be seated were unavailing. The visitor said he would take up only a few minutes of the great mans time and apologiZed in few dignified phrases for his intrusion.
 'fWhat brought me heren he went on, ''is this. l have wife and three children. We had a home in a ,vii- lage that is now in ruins and occupied by the .Boches. My little family es- eaped before the invaders got there. When I was convalescing in the hos pital, having lost both of my eyes; they came to Paris to be near me. Paris was as good a place as any other and we have got to settle somewhere. But will you believe its> we have not been able to procure lodgings where we could establish another little home. No landlord will rent to us. They seem to think that a blind soldier with family of little ones, and poor, is undesirable as a tenant. Perhaps they are right, but what can we do? We can't continue to pay board-We can't afford it-and we have got to go some where. I never in my life before have asked living soul to assist me. but with my little family I am helpless. have come to you. sir, thinking that
 perhaps you would make our plight known to the great generous public, 1 believing, that someone would help II hn in
 lar extremity. to locate somewhere. " It was fortunate for the editor that his visitor could not see his face. The great man rose with much loud and unnecessary shuffiing of his chair, put lon his hat and then answered the sol- Edier, still standing stiffly at attention with that unfathonahle expression which is seen only on the faces of the blind in mental anguish and seems to lconcentrate the patient suffering of the world from the beginning of time :, Come with me, my 7friend,' he said
 gently.
 A few minutes later, editor and sol ldier stepped from an automobile and were escorted at once into the private office of Eugene Brieux, past a long line of visitors waiting to see him some of whose names figure daily in : the press review of the city's activi- ) ties.
 The interview was brief. When il
 ended the editor came out smiling and , heamed greeting to the persons he recognized in the waiting line as, his : farm in that of the blind man, he 1et him back to the waiting car. As te the soldier. his visage was an enigma
 tical as ever; but a close observer would have noted that there was light 7 ness in his step as he strode forward
 into the Cimmerian blackness tha.
 stretched before him to the unguess
 able limit of his life.
 The next day words that scared thi
 page,- made the printers ink to s!zzl and burned themselves into the heart of men appeared in the leading arti ]. cle of the Figaro. But meanwhile M
 Brieux had seen the chairman of th e executive committee of the American f British French Belgian Permanen ' Blind Relief War Fund, and the up
 shot of it all was that several sur
 lfFised and ~overjoyed families of blin e soldiers with little or no money an . without belongings and therefore un !. desired by landlords, were installed i la building at La Garenne- Coionbes
 linear Paris, where the blind men an
 all the members of their families wh : are old enough or not too aged to wor 70 0rS LduSuI to earn tlelr own llVlnS, A e soon as family is supporting ,r is moved into a little home provide
 for 1t by the A. B. F. B. and starte : on its way equipped with tools an
 materials and fully able to shift for it n self.
 l- The system on which 1t is conducte It may be judged from the following ex IT tracts from the rules, which betray \
 Brieux as the author of them in ever
 line:
 "Worizrnen and workwomen will cor 10 duet themselyes in this house just a a though they were in their own home of they will like to keep it neat and nic It and will prevent their children frol l. damaging the flowers and other thing