AS ERRAND BOY

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 12867, 22 May 1936, Page 3

AS ERRAND BOY

IL BUCK VERY STUDIOUS WHAT FORMER EMPLOYER SAID. M. Charles Dcpaulis, a pork butcher, and trader in Italian Mod's luffs, who in 1905 employed Signor Mussolini as an g rand hoy, died at 'Lausanne last) month. In 1905 Air. Dcpaulis had a small shop where he made macaroni ami sold salami and -mortadelia. Hi? aifended' the lectures of the local Socialist Party and) there one night a comrade recommended to him a destitute young man who had been expelled from Geneva. The young man wais Benito Alussolini. M. Dcpaulis engaged him as errand boy and gave him 30 f aucs a month plus lodging, food and laundry. Mussolini was taking a course at Lausanne University. 110 read, in the shop whenever lie had leisure, and when in the streets lie had :u. parcel ill one hand and an open book in the other. He also contributed some- articles to an Italian Socialist newspaper in Switzerland. The pork butclie 1 and h:s errand hoy discussed polit’cal questions and Mussolini was much the more ardent Socialist, of the two. In 190 G Mussolini Wt AI. Dui]nuilis and was employed) by another Italian trader in Lausanne, M. Tecfeschi, but lie was soon deported from Switzerland owing to his extremist theories. AT. Dcpaulis and Signor Alussolini (lid not meet until 1922 fat the time of tlio LaVisannc Peace Conference, when they had a short and cordial conversation on the Lausanne railway platform.