Though we are at war, our sons being shot down and our national existence threatened, yet there is yet another very strong factor in favour of the German spy. According to Mr. McKenna, he himself is only responsible for the London district, while elsewhere the County Constabulary, under the Chief Constables of Counties, are "to pay every attention to representations of the naval and military authorities," in the matter of hostile espionage.[2] This strikes me as one of the finest examples of "how not to do it" that we have heard of for some time, and it must indeed be a source of delight to the secret "enemy within our gates." Fancy such a ridiculous regulation in Germany! Of some of the hundreds of cases of undoubted espionage which have been brought to my notice since the outbreak of war, I will enumerate a few. One was that of two Germans who--posing as Poles--rented a large country house at £150 a year, bought a quantity of furniture, and settled down to a quiet life. The house in question was situated at a very important point on the main London and North Western Railway, and the grounds ran down to a viaduct which, if destroyed, would cut off a most important line of communication. The suspicion of a neighbour was aroused. He informed the police, and a constable _in full uniform_ began to make inquiries of the neighbours, the result being that the interesting pair left the house one night, and have not since been seen. Outside London, the county constabulary are making praiseworthy efforts to find spies, but when men in uniform set out to make inquiries--as they unfortunately do in so many cases--then the system becomes hopeless. The same thing happened in a small coast town in Norfolk where signalling at night had been noticed. Indeed, in two instances in the same town, and again in Dunbar, the appearance of the police inspector caused the flight of the spies--as undoubtedly they were. As regards the county of Norfolk, it has long received the most careful attention of German secret agents. At the outbreak of war the Chief Constable, Major Egbert Napier, with commendable patriotism, devoted all his energies to the ferreting out of suspicious characters, spies who were no doubt settled near and on the coast in readiness to assist the enemy in case of an attempted landing. By Major Napier's untiring efforts a very large area has been cleared, more especially from Cromer along by Sheringham, Weybourne--a particularly vulnerable point--and from Cley-next-the-Sea to Wells and King's Lynn. Major Napier engaged, at my instigation, a well-known detective-officer who, for some years, had been engaged at the Criminal Investigation Department at New Scotland Yard, specially attached to deal with German criminals for extradition back to Germany. He was a Russian, naturalised English, and spoke German perfectly, being born in Riga--and an ideal officer to inquire into the whole German spy system in Norfolk.