The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1919-06-28
|C[nSORS DETECTED WORK
/. OF IhMUnERABlE SPIES.

| London, June es--The work OF the
| Postal Censor, which 10 shortly to he
| brought TO a close, will make when IL
/ is ail related one of the most interest
| ing and ronatic chapters % the war.
/ AS many as 10000 letters day
have been examined by stan or
nearly 1900 men ard women. Often
when a letter or parcel has been APP
parentiy harmless the suspicious OF
| the examiners have been aroused. and
| chemical tests have revealed secret
writing and X-rays have detected ar
ticles concealed In parcels.
A favorite method employed by
Germans abroad TO send food to those
at home was TO make up a roll con-
ard attach false ends 10 1t to make it
! lock like parcel OF newspapers.
Others would fold their papers, lay
! them fat together, cut large holes in
the center and pack these hollow
spaces with rubber and other articles
Germans at home would send forth
their propaganda under false colors,
What appeared for example. to be a
school edition of Homer would con-
in India Similarly, magazine covers.
/ dated 1912, would he used for con-
cealing the literature OF 1918.
The Germans were always putting
their new wine into old bottles IN this
way. as the library and museum that
have been formed by the department
abundantiy testify,
Some of the most curious things in
the library are the cartoons which the
Germans tried to send broadcast. One.
when unity of command was estab-
iished. represents the Gallo Cock
perched on the head OF the British
Lion another. when America entered
the war, depicts all the members of
the Roosevelt family as Red Indians
ftourishing tomahawks
In the museum are many curiosi-
. ties which were addressed to the
kaiser--bare chicken bones and dry
bread. search that is cursed and
/ ar American cartoon marked, If
party is not there please forward to
/ st Helena"
While these and similar discoveries
added curious interest to the work
of the department. information of a
more valuable kind was constantly OBJ
tanned by the expert commercial staff
of the censor. Without this very
| vigilant censorship the trading-with-
/ the enemy laws could not have been
i enforced. In all the most important
cases the prosecution relied largely
upon its evidence.
The censorship made 1t impossible
for the enemy to communicate with
! his oversee markets, and innumerable
letters from enemy sources indicated
how much this factor contributed tc
the pressure of the blockade. Elab'
crate schemes by the enemy for BEING
4 first In the markets OK the world wher
the war was over were defeated by
the fact that they were invariabl.
discovered by the censor.
The prisoners of war, whose letter,
are still being censored, are full o
the one idea of getting home. The,
are very angry about the peace terms
but So their government will no
keep them.
Letters in more than one hundret
different languages have had to b
deciphered by an expert staff o
ninety linguists Amongst the mos
A.. difficult of these communication
were those written in Basque. Zulu
Chinese and such devices as Greek il
Turkish and Bulgarian. charact ers. Blu
: no difficulty has ever been too grea
l for the department to overcome. TIL
: censorship has done useful work an
: has kept the government constant
informed on thousand things whic
were vital to the winning of the wal