The above heading is distinctly more acceptable to the ear than the evil-sounding “spying,” and yet, strictly speaking, the two are identical. This is an industry which flourishes in peace time more luxuriously than in war, when is expected the harvest of seed sown in less turbulent times. Small wonder, therefore, that a prolonged peace period should produce a rank and almost unmanageable growth of the thing known as espionage. Newspaper reports keep us informed of flagrant cases; but there are hundreds of them that never become public, being studiously hushed up. All over Europe the game is being played assiduously—perhaps nowhere more assiduously than between Austria and her great Eastern neighbour, whose moves and counter-moves form an instructive study. In this chronic duel of wits it is the Russian who seems to me to keep the upper hand, running even the Galician Jew close in the matter of secret information. The following two examples speak for themselves.

Some years ago a number of military documents (plans of the fortifications) were stolen from a safe in P——. Presently they were returned from Warsaw—I rather think it was even before the theft had been discovered—without an accompanying word, but with a few remarks (of an ironical nature) written upon the margins.

But the most significant, as well as entertaining thing was what happened to Captain J——, a comrade of L——'s, who, egged on, I fancy, by his beautiful and virulently patriotic Polish wife, undertook a “mission” to the portion of Russia which Poles never speak of otherwise than as “the kingdom.”