FEMALE SPY SENTENCED.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12282, 8 July 1914, Page 7

FEMALE SPY SENTENCED.

ROMANTIC STORY. Arrested recently at' Hamburg on acharge, of having obtained from a shipyard these portions of it plan of .a warshin and of having sold them to the French Intelligence Department. Rosa Langstein. a female clerk, was Rontenced to 30 months' penal servitude for espionage. Rosa Langstein, who is 35 years of age, was born in Bohemia, migrated with her parents to Germany, and studied at. the Commercial High School at. Frankton-on-Maine. After being employed for some time in office work and domestic service, she at ljjst found horfielf at Berlin without occupation, and in her extremitv_ she attempted to obtain money by blackmailing a married couple in Charlottenburg. Her plan of extortion, however, only brought lier three months' imprisonment.

•She then applied to the. "PYenuii Consulate here, and offered her sorvxes as a spy, but was told that if siie wanted to do work of that kind She >i>ust. place herself in communication with the Intelligence Department at Paris. _ .-be thereupon made a journey to the French capital, where she asked for an advance of 200f. She was, however, informed that payment was only made in return for definite services, and that she must show some fungible results before she could receive pecuniary encouragement. .Accordingly she went off to Hamburg, where she induced a- workman in one of theVihinynrcls to steal for hc-r the plans of the engines of a German war vessel. These she at once forwarded tr> Paris, and though she was informed in reply that her booty had no particular value for her correspondents, she was at the same time smpplied'with a list of secrets which the French Intelligence Department was anxious to probe.

Fraulein Langstoin now managed to get into communication with various persons in this country on the subject of her quest, but the Imperial Court has drawn an impenetrable veil over this phase of hpr adventurous career. Eventually one of her letters came into the hands of the police, who enticed lier to Cologne with a promise of a packet of secret •documents', and as soon as she presented herself at the rendezvous arrested lier. As she made a fill! confession no evidence was called.