THE CZAR’S SPIES.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 460, 5 April 1890, Page 5

THE CZAR’S SPIES.

SENT TO AMERICA.

A special cablegram from London to New York on March 7 says:—The Russian Government lately sent to the United States fifty spies or agents —thirty-five women and fifteen men—charged with the duty of endeavouring to modify the impressions made by magazine and newspaper articles on the American people, and also to secure the passage of an extradition treaty looking to the return to Russia of fugitive political offenders. These emissaries are under assumed names, and are known only to the secret police at St. Petersburg. They are well supplied with money,and are instructed to hold no open communication with one another. The ostensible object of their visit to America is to lecture on Russian subjects, which discourses will be supplemented by the publication of articles in various newspaper laudatory of the Czar and his government. Ten of the fifty are directed to go to Washington to ingratiate themselves with members of both Houses of Congress, arid to ultimately gain an entrance into the best American Society. Already three of these emissaries have arrived in America, two ladies of high birth and one gentleman of equally high social position, an officer in the Russian armv. One of the ladies is delivering lectures and giving readings on Russia in the Western States, and the other is similarly engaged in the Southern States, while the gentleman is sojourning in Washington cultivating desirable acquaintances, writing occasional newspaper articles pertinent to his mission, and taking a general survey of the field pending the arrival of his colleagues.