We can respect Lody; we can have no other feelings but the bitterest scorn and contempt for such traitorous miscreants as the ex-naval gunner, Charles Parrott, who, early in 1913, was sentenced to four years' penal servitude, under the Official Secrets Act of 1911, for selling official secrets likely to be useful to the enemy. The class of traitor to which Parrott belongs represents the spy in his very lowest and most contemptible guise. About these wretched agents among us there is no redeeming feature. Patriotism is, to them, a word of no meaning; to their country they have no attachment: their one idea is to make money, and to do this they are willing to risk the very existence of the nation to which they belong. Show them gold, and there is no work on earth too dirty for them to undertake! And we have, I fear, many such men in our public services. It is men of this stamp who have made the very name of "spy" a by-word in all countries and all times--not the men who risk their lives in order to gain an advantage for the cause to which they are attached by every sacred obligation of honour. Parrott, up to August, 1912, was a gunner attached to H.M.S. "Pembroke" at Sheerness. He was a warrant officer, and as such would have opportunities of obtaining information which would be denied to those of lower rank. The charge against him was, of course, not one of spying, since the offence was not committed in time of war. It was couched in the following terms:-- That he being a British officer did feloniously communicate at Ostend to a person unknown certain information in regard to the arms, armaments, dispositions and movements of ships and men of His Majesty's Navy which was calculated, or intended to be, or might be useful to an enemy. In considering Parrott's case we have to remember that he was an Englishman, in the service of the Crown in the Navy, and a British officer. He was in a position of responsibility, and his pay, with allowances, would work out at about £260 a year, so that he had not even the excuse of poverty to urge in mitigation of his horrible offence. He had been in the Navy for a number of years, and he was regarded as an efficient and trustworthy officer, so that he was able to become acquainted with matters which it was his obvious duty to guard with the most jealous care. He had been associated with the building of the "Agamemnon" on the Clyde, so that he was intimately acquainted with all those particulars of guns and armaments which, in the event of war, it would be of the utmost interest to an enemy to know. He knew, in fact, of confidential matters of the utmost importance.