As to the financial aspects of the German Spy System, it is a matter of public record that the Reichstag makes a yearly appropriation of about £1,000,000 sterling for the purposes and objects of the Imperial Secret Service. It is obvious, however, that the total expenditure must be far in excess of this sum, since, to use a memorable phrase, "every dirty little lieutenant" who has taken a holiday within the past ten years and has consented to spend his time in England, has done so at the expense of the Secret Service of Berlin. In these cases the young officers are "invited" to inspect the counties through which they travel, and in order to facilitate their movements, they are each supplied with sectional maps which are more perfect in every particular than the cyclists' hand-books with which we are so familiar in these days. There is no lane, bridle-path, road, farmhouse, pot-house, or farrier's which is not clearly marked in these sectional maps. The prospective tourist—who is most frequently a minor departmental official—is handed one or more of them on the understanding that if he can improve upon their topographical value in the smallest particulars, he will benefit to the extent of a hundred marks or so. The result is that official Berlin knows England north, south, east and west, far better than any Englishman knows Berlin, and one may depend upon it that if an army corps were to land anywhere in Britain, its commanders would know the road to London, as well as local facilities and capacities for feeding 40,000 men, far better than the majority of Irishmen know the way to Tipperary or even the civic standing of that much-sung city. The gathering of such minute information involves a costly process. One million sterling yearly must be inadequate to cover the expenditure of 500 registered and salaried officials, with "details" numbering at least 500 more of a more or less fixed status, and twice that number of annual tourist candidates looking for German bank-notes. Before concluding our examination of the German Spy System, we may hear what an American war-correspondent has to say in regard to the precautions which the General Staff takes in order to preclude the operations of spies inside the German lines. The following incident was communicated to _The New York Times_ by its special correspondent on 1st December 1914:—