The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1914-01-03
INTERNATIONAL SPY
DOES NOT BELONG IN
TWENTIETH CENTURY
Has Been Replaced By the
Stock Ticker-DOllar Is
Paramount NOw-Story
of Wis. Preston

In these days when all the dash and
adventure and romance have been
squeezed out of international politics,
to be replaced by the prosaic voice Of
the stock ticker-which has the last
word in peace and war. no matter what
the diplomatists may think or say-it
strikes the worlds funny bone to read
that somebody has stolen Germany's
war plans or made off with the blue
prints of Frances latest dreadnought,
says the Kansas City Star.
Only recently the cable flashed the
news that the pockets of England's
first lord of the admiralty had been
picked by a beautiful woman of what
appeared to be the whole naval budget.
Europe shuddered and the first lord
ordered out the whole British secret
service to run the woman down. 1t was
going to unnecessary trouble. He
should have communicated with e.
Phillips Oppenheim. The lady was one
of his heroines on a holiday.
Despite the hard work of the Euro
pean correspondents there is little hope
that this generation can be made to
visualize the international spy. Some
how he doesn't belong to the age. And
another difficulty is that when the
work-a-day world wants a thrill of
that kind it knows where to get the
real thing, for there was a time when
the international spy really existed and
had adventures more hair raising than
any ever imagined by the Industrious
Paris and Berlin space writer's. His eX-
ploits make the most interesting kind
of reading, because he usually got
hanged.
Swapping a German fort with a cam
era or even picking an English cab
met minister's pockets are pleasant d.
versions compared to the undertaking
that fell to the lot of the secret sery-
ice agents who slipped back and forth
between London and st. German in
the good old years of the Jacobite plots
And those plots are real history, real
men and women were engaged in
them, and, unlike the present day
scares, real state secrets were some
times exposed by them.
The Stage Is Set
On the night of December 81, 1890. a
little fishing smack called the James
and Elizabeth tossed lightly at its
mornings in the Thames. Not far away
through the murlSy London night
cleaned the lights of whitehall, where
was pacing the royal closet with his
ministers, some of whom he had good
reason to suspect of treachery.
Three men had approached the mas
ter of the James and Elizabeth the
day before, their pockets jingling with
golden guineas. How would he like to
go in on a little smuggling expedition
to the coast of France and back? The
honest fisherman would like 1t we'll IL
the profits We're high enough and the
risk not too great. The three strangers
soon convinced him on these points,
and the terms were arranged over IA
bottle of wine. the self-styled SNUG
bargain in the theatrical fashion Of
The smack was ballastered in gravel
and laid to it's mornings against the
appointed hour, which was to be mid
night of the last night of the year.
But the honest fisherman had his sus-
picions. Smuggling was risky matter.
but there were riskier. Holding traitor
Gus communications with exiled King
James, for instance. James had been
lowering at st. German ever since his
flight two years before, plotting and
planning with French King Luis for
a descent on England. The master OF
the James and Elizabeth had reason
to know the fate of those caught in
I
and their French allies. How often
had he stood in the crowd that sur
rounded the black-draped scaffold on
Tower Hill and seen the adherents of
that unfortunate house led to their
doom? Not that he would have been
so honored-Tyburn would have been
good enough for him, Tyburn with the
cart and quartering block, and Tom
Boilman to scar his legs in pitch be-
fore they were hung up as a warnin &
to his kind.
The Honest Fisherman
Enough. the honest fisherman not
only was determined to keep his anat-
omy intact, but to turn an honoest
penny in the doing. So. while the three
smugglers We're drinking a bottle to
the luck of the voyage he slipped over
to Whitehall and dropped word in
the ear of Kings minister
1t was the luckiest stroke of his
honest life. For the chief of the SNUG
glers-he that had broke the sixpence
was none other than Richard Ora
ham, Viscount Preston who had been
secretary of state under King James
and man dealy sought by King Will
liam's government. One of his com
panions was John Ashton. who had
held high office in the household of the