Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1916 — EFFICIENT WORK DONE BY BRITISH SECRET SERVICE [ARTICLE]

EFFICIENT WORK DONE BY BRITISH SECRET SERVICE

Public Hears Little pf It, But Achievements Figure Large in Archives. •/ ■ ■ - . •’* * CATCH MANY FOREIGN SPIES •*» England Swarmed With Spies in German Pay—ln Some Cases They Were. British Citizens for Whose Loyalty Their Neighbors Vouched. London. —A correspondent of the New York World has just had an opportunity of learning something of what the British secret service has accomplished from one who, though not an official, has been ift the way of knowing something about it.- One has heard very little of the British secrqjl service at any time, indeed there are' those who believed that it was nonexistent before the war and had to be improvised, like Kitchener’s army. From what the World’s informant says this seems to have been another great delusion. It seems, indeed, to have had one very good attribute of a secret lervice —it worked without being suspected of being ,&t work. Some time ago, when the demand Tor the. more rapid internment or repatriation of Germans became insistent in parliament, a committee was created, with the widest possible powers under statute, to investigate all demands for internment or repatriation, or appeals for release by those already Interned. The proceedings of this committee have, of course, been secret, but it has, nevertheless, dealt with many thousands of cases—about 35,000 probably—and it must have sat tw-elve to fourteen hours a day to get through them. The secret service proposes, for instance, that a certain German —or Austrian, as the case may be —shall be interned; TFhe, individual, is brought before the committee, Tears the rea : sons given for his internment, says whatever he can against the proposal and the committee gives its decision. Oftentimes the interned person finds some new reason why he or she should be released, and this reason is taken into account by the committee on appeal. There is no other appeal; the committee’s are superior to the jurisdiction Of all the courts of the realm; Its powers, therefore, are of a very extraordinary kind, nothing like it since the star chamber. Such are the products of war einergency. Army Captain Suspected. Needless to say, this tribunal has had some extraordinary cases before it. For example, there was the appeal for the confinement of a British army captain, with near relatives high in the service, and coming of an old English family. It is in such cases that the cleverness and completeness of the British secret service comes in. Failure to satisfy the committee in a case of that kind would spell discredit increased difficulty in -getting internment orders in other cases. In this particular instance all the influence that might be expected was brought to bear to show- that the suspicion alleged against the captain was groundless—and not that but preposterous. But it was shown that he had been in correspondence with suspicious individuals in Germany, and particularly with a beautiful German lady with whom he w r as infatuated-and who was known to be one of the units in the kaiser’s widely extended spy system. It was not alleged that he was giving away secrets, but his desperate infatuation for this lady and the ,fact that he had found means of corresponding with her since the war made it desirable that he should be put in a place of security —and he was. This victim of the internment pommittee’s activities was a British subject; but no matter whose subject you may be you are equally amenable to its juridiction. Disloyalty That Amazed. There is talk here of another striking example of the thoroughness with which the British secret service has been doing its work in peace time. A German of title, for over twenty years,naturalized, who lived in a very grand way in ao English county, was brought up for internment. ; He had been one of the most prominent men in his district in public affairs, a voluble admirer of the Union Jack, had denounced Prussian designs against the peace of Europe, entertained on a lavish scale, and was an exceedingly popular as well as influential person In his locality. When the demand was made for his internment he appealed to his influential county friends. More than anything else It hurt him that It should be thought possible that he could have been false to the English friends who had become so dear to him. They were all up in arms in his favor, and the committee got protests from most of the representative persons BDd bodies in the county denouncing the action of the authorities In casting this slur on a gentleman for whose loyalty and trustworthiness they would vouch as for their own. He had given innumerable evidences of bis genuine love es England, and had actually taken a very active part in

promoting the territorial army syßtVm In the county. It Was No Blunder. It looked as if the secrej service had made a bad blunder. But It hadn’t. They showed by direct evidence that this man during his whole residence in this country had been in regular I communication with the German government, and that there was no doubt whatever that -his British' naturalization was a calculated fraud to cover his work on behVlf of his native coun try. The British secret service knew everything that had passed between this 'German nobleman and the German government at a time when it was supposed to be asleep, if not nonexistent. He was simply interned, al though his infuriated dupes thought he should be. tried and dealt'with as a spy. 3ut he had seemingly been* -qtrteseent-sinee the war began. These, it Is said, are only examples of a great number of cases where suspects, having been brought up for internment, indignantly contested the demand on the ground of their loyalty, and who, when they pushed the secret service to disclosing its case, were thunderstricken to discover that their underhand activities had been known and watched for years. There is good reason for stating that within forty-eight hours of the declaration of war every German spy regarded by the authorities as in the least dangerous was put away; other? were kept under observation as being useful as decoys for the spies sent here since the war. T 1? Lenient With Woman Spy. Anent the killing of Miss Cavell by the Germans when she was /not even; charged with espionage, the British government has under lock and key here now r , under a sentence of merely ten years’ penal servitude, the German woman whose accomplice was one of those shot in the Tower as a This woman was known to be one of the most dangerous and most highly trusted spies in the pay of the German secret service. She was full of daring, could adopt all manner of disguises, and often made up like a man without ever being detected — except by the secret service agents, who were allowing her to run her tether. She had control over several male spies wh<? accepted their orders from her. She had always planned to commit suicide if arrested, but she was snared in a way that frustrated that purpose. She had determined to take her own life because she expectedTo be shot or haftged if caught. She tenew that-under all the rules of the game she deserved it. The most ingenious and daring inventors of spy stories are left puffing and panting with exhausted imagination compared to the schemes, devices and sacrifices thatj the spy of real life is known to have ipade in furtherance of the designs of the Fatherland. An Englishman’s German Wife. ■- Ohe hears of the case of the German wife of a very prosperous professional Than up country She is a singularly handsome woman, a clever talker, a very good amateur musician and singer, and an adept in aIL the wiles of fascination. Being married to an Englishman, she is of British nationality. She too had been long in the hooks of the secret service. She was a kind of person who was bound to be talked about anyway, because there was a Teutonic ostentation about her and a flushness of cash that attracted attention. Early this year she came up to London, set up* in a handsome apartment, frequented the best night clubs and other places where officers were to be found, and soon had a train of them after her. She entertained lavishly and heT par-

« i. "* .'-2» ties were vs* y fast and furious. This was all done for the Fatherland. Her money :'«sources were extensive, and she is even suspected of getting ini pecunious young officers into her toils by assisting them out of their difficulties. She had lust moved into a still more elegant flat when her career was suddenly eut short. She Is now hibernating with an assortment of dowdy frauleins, spy-governesses and such like, in the quiet of an Internment establishment for women. It is said that she had nearly J 500.000 in different banks. It all came from Germany. r .. Will Be Changed London. The police are not confining their exertions to dealing with actual Spies like this Delilah. They are steadily clearing out the foreign demi-monde, which was very generously represented in London. Batches of these women, who have haunts in every district in the vast area of London, but who are seen at their gaudiest in the neighborhood of Leicester square and Coventry street, are being sent away daily. London will be changed in ,many respects before this war is over, Jput in nothing more strangely than inthe cleaning up of its streets, which especially in the heart of the West end; have long been a good deal of a scandal. But that is only the work of the “Journeyman”''policeman; the really valuable war work is being done by the secret service branch.