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Show FOREIGN SPIES AC1ELY SEEKING SECRETS , OF ARMY Accounts in Part for Attention Atten-tion Given Recent Peters Pet-ers Incident WASHINGTON, A JO. Startling erideae of the prnirious activity of foreign spies is in the poMeeaion of the army general eta(T. which arcounte for the serious consideration that is now being given to the noot trifling report of attempts to discover the military secrets of the country. Borne of th.'ff incidents are of comparatively recent date and it waa upon the submission of euch information to a secret session o the judicial committee of the house that legislation waa secured in the last aes-aion aes-aion of eongreee prouiding for the se vers punishment of spies in time of peace. An Englishman in Calcutta picked up in the streets a small package of blue prints showing every detail of the defenses de-fenses of Corregidor island; the main stronghold of the United States in the Philippines. Ths prints were not copies of anv drawing o rchsrts prepared for use of the United States, but were evidently evi-dently the result of a careful and delib erst' Investigation of thr-ofltctal-arid confidential records of the United Statea. The eiistence of the blue printa made it evident that there were other copies in ezietenee. The Englishman En-glishman sent the papers to the war department de-partment here, but the moat careful in veetigatioa failed to discover the means by which the information has been obtained. A waiter ia a Seattle hotel waa found to be a foreign officer in disguise, poe-seesing poe-seesing msny drawings and notes he had made of ths PaeiSe eoast defenses. An American embassador notified the state department that a certain captain cap-tain belonging to the army of the country coun-try where he waa stationed had been detailed co epena inras jmrm studying the canal from a strategic standpoint aad he understood that there were ail or aevea other offieere of the same nationalitv in the United States gathering militarv information. A New York policeman arrested an Americsn for a trivial offence and found in his trunk military maps and information which convinced the officials offi-cials that he was ia the employ of a foreign government. But the incident that convinced the judiciary committee of the necessity for the protective law occurred less thaa a yoar ago ia the Philippines. Ao enlisted man in the engineers waa offered of-fered $28,000 by two foreign offieere for the plans of the defenses of Corregidor island. Being the official photographer, he bad ample opportunity -to get all the necessary pictures, having first informed in-formed his superior officer of the attempt. at-tempt. . A trap waa laid and the two foreign spies were captured. But habeas corpus proceedings ware obtained ob-tained aad they were released aa there waa then no lew la the Philippines or the United States under which they could be prosecuted. |