New Britain herald., 1919-01-10
REAL SPY STORIES
 NOW BEING RELATED
Tales of War Time Secret Service
 Intensely Thrilling

story business in Britain today. but there is a boom in the real thing.
 Many and varied were the ways in which enemy spies worked against this country. There are hundreds of records at Scotland Yard, at the war office and the admiralty showing the methods they adopted.
 Tn several instances the spy, hav- ing obtained the desired information. communicated with the enemy by in- nocent looking letters sent through a neutral country. Between the lines of the innocent letter another conamu1i cation was written in invisible ink.
 Communication was also attempted },y advertisements in newspapers In one instance furniture was offered for sale but generally the personal col unln was used, Each advertisement contained code message This method, however, was quickly discov- cred by the officers at Scotland Yard, and was abandoned by the spies somewhat early in the war.
 Women Show Ingenuity.
 Women spies devised many ingen- .ous schemes. One posed as a fortune teller and gathered round her society women and wives of officers whom che pumped" for Information. An other was a beauty specialist who worked on similar lines. A third dis vuised herself as a hawker and went rom campsto camp picking up scraps of information.
 One woman was recently sentenced Ut the Old Bailey to twelve months imprisonment for communicating in 'OTmation which might be useful to he enemy. This woman used d code .l her letters to a rela tive il Ger many.
 A woman at Plymouth received q "nOrt term of Imprisonment on d hDrge of false pretences. In this case he local chief constable described her US one of the most crafty women in he country.
 Another woman who was sent to renal servitude for espionage had ,cnt printed matter through the post such a way as to ovade the detec-
 cn of the postal censor.
 A number of "society'' women who ere arrested in the west end of Lon on had more than f30,000 in gold in cir possession. There was no lack f funds for the spies work.
 Caught Through His Spectacles.
 The notorious Capt, Boehm of the russian imperial staff was caught
 cause his spectacles were giving i'm trouble. He admitted having been engaged in espionage.
 A number of men spies have been captured in this country and have been shot in the Tower. A British subject has gone to prison for collect ing information relating to the army and trying to pass it on to others,
 Extracts from a remarkable docu- ment show the methods used by Ger man agents in their effort to sink al- lied shipping. An explosion occurred in the cargo of British steamship on the high seas and three lives were lost Only by prompt and stren- uous efforts was the vessel saved. The cargo consisted of hides, cases of mineral and kinematograph films. Suspicion centered on the cases of minerals and the films. These had been shipped by a licensed custom house dispatcher, who said he repre- sented certain American engineers who had been explorng and had asked him to see to the shipm ent of cases. He declared the cases contained samples of minerals and negatives.
 Tales of the Sea.
 It was evidently tho intention to sink the steamship and all on board without trace" and had the case which must have contained the bombs been placed in the bottom of the
 
 achieved. The bottom of the ship would have been blown out. AS it was E#the cases were placed on top of some thousands of hides, and more hides were put on top of the cases. T The next item in the chain of evil X derce was a document sent to Berlin Fl through a neutral country. In this it 2 was stated that a German employed a'' at the port had received the bombs fefrom an agent and that he had seen to their shipment. Subsequently a clerk confessed his complicity in the crime, and papers were discovered re- sealng an elaborate plot, A large sum of money was also found in envelope marked "On His Majesty's Service"
 Later a man made a claim against an insurance company in respect Of sixteen cases and it was for attempted fraud in connection with this claim that he was arrested. Among his pa pers was a cutting describing the ca reer of the man believed to be the chief instigator. The crimes commit ted by this man and his confederates are almost beyond belief. Among them were:
 The steamship Salvador was com 3 pIetely destroyed by fire; the Vauban , was barely saved from complete de- struction In the same way; coaling station was burned out; the Royal Mail steamship Pembrokeshire was destroyed in the Atlantic (the boilers burst through dynamite being mixed 2 with the coaD; the Tennyson was dy namited; four ships left port and " wore never heard of again. "The Things That Count. A series