SEIZED AS SPIES.

Shannon News, 11 August 1925, Page 2

SEIZED AS SPIES.

ENGLISHWOMEN’S EXPERIENCE. NERVY ITALIAN POLICE. LONDON, July 25. Mrs Handel Booth, who recently visited Italy, accompanied by Margery Lawrence (the authoress, and sister of Captain Allan Lawrence, Lord Forster’s aide-de-camp), in a letter to the Daily Mail, complains: “While we were crossing a crowded street in Florence, plainclothes detectives seized us and requested us to accompany them to the police station, I said, ‘We are English, and only arrived two hours ago. Take us to the British Consul.’ ■ “A motor-car packed with police shadowed us to our hotel, and detectives told the manager that we were spies. We secured the assistance of an Italian lawyer, and thus escaped spending the night in the cells. . ' “The Consul eventually obtained an apology, but no explanation. “There have been four similar cases in the last fortnight. A young American and his sister were imprisoned for four days." , , . Mrs Booth adds: “While the detectives were accosting us, a mob gathered. It was curious not hostile. Our lawyer was able to prove that there as no shadow of evidence of spying against us. , , . “The others arrested included an Englishman and his wife.” Mrs Booth is the wife of Mr Frederick Handel Booth, the ironmaster, who was Liberal M.P. for Pontefract from 1910 toi 1918.