HUN SPY TRICKS IN HOLLAND.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14548, 23 October 1917, Page 3

HUN SPY TRICKS IN HOLLAND.

A RESIDENT ENGLISH JOURNALIST EXPOSES THEM.

Needless to say, Holland, which is i the only little bit of neutral land between Germany and England, is swarming with Him spies and agents, and the ways in which they try to find out things from anybody* wt om they think might know nseiul facts, are marvellous. Oi" course, the Germans make great use of spying women. They are attractive girls, and most, of tnem speaK Flemish and, French. These girls aro from time to time sent to live at hotels wfcere possibly useful "victims" are living. In this way and without any (suggestion of forcing their company on other residents, they can easily scrape acquaintance- with any one who, from their point of view, is worth it. j Naturally, visitors from France or England are regarded as "big game." i And ttere aro many such visitors. ' They are in tuese times' cliietly business men, commercial travellers, a few '] uiucials, and not a fow journalists both male and female. \ i'rom time to time there are waves of strenuous activity on the- part of tiiese women and their male accomplices. In most of the cities of Hoi- : land there are cafes wiere dancing and music are carried on every evening. Here the dancing girl awaits her. victims. ; Life is fairly free and easy in these places, and in the course of an evening. it is possible for any of these female fcpies to find out who is present. i The correspondents of English newspapers are particularly pestered by these tarpies. To be shadowed hourly is the lot of us all. Those responsible for this espionage appear to think that; every Englishman in Holland, whether! he call himself business man or, journal- ! ist, is really engaged in spying for life I country. In any case they act on this j supposition, and' follow us, at what j must be fabulous expense on taxicabs I and railway fares. In Holland no man has a, right to follow another, and ho who is followed has the law on his side if he turns upon his follower and gives him a left and j right. Of course, in the case of women : this is an impossible means of retaliu-j tion, and they are safe, i But with men it is different, and] here the cunning of the Hun is si own. j Ho never sets a decent-sized man to follow another. I have never seen a man engaged in this work whom I could hit with any &elf-respect. - Nevertheless, there ia a very efficient service of espionage which keeps German headquarters well informed of things both gi'eat and small. The following story, which is pertectl ytrue in every detail, shows low difficult itis for any incident to take place without the Germans knowing about it. A Dutch business man, sitting with some friends outside a cafe, took from his pocket a penny imitation iron, cross and tied it round the neck of a dog belonging to one of the company. This man went to Germany Six weeks after the incident. .

All went well till he was wel lover the Dutch frontier. After signing his name at an hotel where he made his first stop, ho was summoned before some military official, and the incident of the dog and the iron cross was related to him in accurate detail. Then for forty-eight hours he was detained in custody while the authorities pretended to make inquiries about him. This was merely an excuse to gi.v.e him a taste of German discipline.