JAPAN'S WOMEN SPIES

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1682, 25 May 1904, Page 64

JAPAN'S WOMEN SPIES

AMERICAN STORY OP LIKE AT PORT ARTHUR.

A sensational article appears in the “New York Journal/' from its correspondent at Port Arthur, professing to reveal the wonderful service of Japanese spies. It is common knowledge, to all but the Russians, the writer declares, that Port Arthur and the districts along the Manchurian railway are alive with the Mikado's spies. Disguised as Buddhist priests, Chinese coolies, etc., they find means to hear and see every detail of Russia's laggard preparations. Among them are navy and army officers highly educated in the arts of war, and of the keenest intelligence. And in their secret work they are aided by a number of fascinating women, in the pay of Japan, who are located at Port Arthur in sumptuous houses, and whose conquest of the Russian officers has been cpmplete. Of one of these women the “Journal" correspondent says: j . "I saw her carriage, with its magnificent Russian pair, and its Cossack coachman on the box, standing in front of the Admiral's quarters. When she came out a Russian naval captain, handed her into the vehicle, and solicitously tucked her Russian sables about her. Mdlle. R keeps open-house. She shows great partiality for Chinese house servants, as do most of her fair friends from Paris—and for a lieutenant in the Japanese navy to disguise himself as a Chinese cook or other domestic is too simple for argument." Another lady, Mdlle. D ,is reported to have secured by her bewitching arts a chart, showing the mines in the harbour, from Lieutenant ■, to whom it bad been entrusted. Admiral Alexeieff, the correspondent declares, is on terms of the greatest intimacy with one of these Japanese spies. “Her wine cellar," he says, “is filled with the choicest vintages, and when the time comes for the Japanese to loot Port Arthur it is safe to say that her establishment will be conveniently overlooked."