HOW GERMANY TREATS SPIES.

Press, Volume XLIII, Issue 6627, 18 December 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOW GERMANY TREATS SPIES.

The Paris Matin, gives its readers tbe following information respecting the treatment to which persons arrested as spies are subjected in€rermany:—"Some five or six years ago a Belgian subject was anastod in Germany on suspicion of being . a spy in the pay of the French Government. No trustworthy evidence against ' him was forthcoming, and the charge was i sustained merely by the testimony of an' ■ entirely irresponsible individual. Never--1 thelesa the accused was condemned to ten

years' imprisonment, after having already suffered eight months' confinement on suspicion. He has since been to all intents and purposes as one dead to his family. It has only been with the greatest difficulty that hehassucceeded in obtaining permission from ths authorities to write a few lines i every quarter. In this epistle, moreover, 'he is compelled, under threats, to sing the praises of the regime of which he ia the innocent victim. He has to herd with thieves and assassins, and although suffering from a most painful physical illness, is on no aocount permitted to see a physician. The Belgian government has, it is said, repeatedly made efforts to obtain, if not the release, at all events the better treatment of this unhappy man, but in vain." The writer of the article maintains that numerous other instanors of a similar kind oould' easily be quoted. I