GERMAN SPIES IN ENGLAND

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume XI, Issue 554, 4 January 1916, Page 7

GERMAN SPIES IN ENGLAND

♦ Since the war begaii 10 persons charged with espionage have been found guilty m England' and have been shot m the Tower of London. On©, of the most, recent cases was that of a man and woman of German origin who were convicted of j attempting to communicate k> persons abroad information regarding the move- j ments of the British Grand Fleet, with the intention of assisting the enemy. The man was shot m the Towei-, and the woman, who was considered by the court martial to have been acting tinder the influence of her companion, is to be kept in' penal servitude for 10 years. Tins is the first occasion on which a female spy has been sentenced m F;ngland to penal servitude since the war began. Previously seven spies have been sentenced to death and executed m the Tower. These were Lodz, Muller, Rosenthal, and four whoao names have not been allowed to transpire. The spy Kuepoile hanged himself at Brixton before his ,trial was concluded, and his companion Hahn sentenced to seven years' penal servitude. When a spy ha 6 been condemned to bs shot he is handed ovei* at once to the military authorities and the sentence is carried out at the Tower of London, that historic place of many tragic happenings. The shooting of spies has been reduced to an absolute system. The chief object of those who have elaborated it appears to have been to avoid unnerving, not the prisoner, though the tining is done ac humanely as posible, but his executioners. When the fateful moment for the execution of a spy arrives the doomed man is brought opt and seated hi a- chair, io which he is pinioned securely. Thiu : s to prevent Iris falling 'after he has bee- -'iot, a sight that was found too much '.■■ the nerves of some of the men compor: the firing squads: Then the prisoner- is blindfolded and both his ears and. his nostrils are stuffed with cotton wool. He is permitted to smoke a cigarette right up to the end, when it is taken away from him axtd . he is told to open his mouth, when tliait, too, is stuffed with cotton wool. Meanwhile the firing squad members have taken their places. There are six picked marksmen, and 20. more men m readiness outside m case any of the first number should flinch. Contrary to what has been the common custom m such cases, all six <>f the rifles are loaded wiili ball cartridges. At the last moment an ordinary targjet printed on paper, is pinned exactly over the prisoner's heart. Naturally, death is i instantaneous. Some one is usually told j off to stand gu&rd over a condemned spy on the night before his execiition, and also ' ! with a view to cheering liim m his last hours. In at least one of such caws, the story goes, the parts* were exactly reversed. The prisoner a. man of 60' was^ more or less 6toical and devoted himeelf to : "bucking up" his guard, who was con-, siderably upset. i -AH the spies have died unflinchingly, and ! many have testified, spontaneously, to the fairness of their trial. The man who went ; furthest m this respect was Gustaf AbJ4TS» who. is said to have left a complwre '.onfession of how he helped plan the Scarborough bombardment and gave other information of the utmost value to the British Admiralty.