Not very long ago Captain Persius, the well-known German naval expert, described, with his tongue in his cheek, the ease with which he was able to get information at certain British dockyards, and we know that many foreign visitors have been allowed practically free access to many of our battleships and to the naval ports. The case of the undergraduates who posed as foreign princes and were shown over one of our Dreadnoughts will be well remembered. All this kind of thing must certainly be put an end to in the future. The question of wireless is also another matter to which we shall have to give considerable attention. It is very much a question whether we should not, in future, adopt some stricter system of compulsory registration of all wireless plant sold and worked in this country. We all hope, of course, that after the present war we shall see a long period of undisturbed peace, but not even that assurance ought to be allowed to blind us to future danger, any more than the belief that a German invasion of Great Britain is an impossibility should cause us to relax, for an instant, our preparations to meet it should it come. Wireless is likely to play a growing part in our world communications, and the tremendous possibilities which attend its unauthorised use have to be reckoned with. I confess that I should have hesitated to introduce even into a novel such an incident as a German officer attempting to escape from this country packed up in a large box. Yet such a case has just been reported; the man was detected and arrested by no more than a lucky accident just as the case was about to be placed on board the liner which was to convey it to Rotterdam. Examination of the case showed how carefully the plans for the escape had been made, and certainly there is a very strong suggestion that the affair could not have been undertaken without active assistance from persons outside the prison from which the officer had escaped. And those persons were spies. It was stated, I see, that the man is believed to have been trying to get over to Germany with important information, and in all probability this is true; it is not at all likely that anyone would have adopted such a desperate expedient merely to escape from custody. The incident, in its practical bearings, is not of great importance, since it is not a plan likely to be adopted except by someone who was absolutely desperate, and obviously we cannot examine every packing case shipped abroad, even in war time. For us the importance of the incident lies in the light it throws upon the skill and resource of the German secret agents, and the need for straining every nerve to cope with their activity. One cannot but admire the courage and resource of a man who was ready to take the risks involved in this particularly daring adventure.