once by his beard, spoke to him, whereupon the man, who was already partly intoxicated, explained that he was having a good time with the money the Japanese had given him that morning.

Thereupon Hiroto Minori invited the fellow to come somewhere and have a drink. Katzan suggested Srul's place, and it was there that Hiroto got him drunk and persuaded him to sign the contract agreeing to serve the Japanese, which the soldier himself wrote out from Hiroto Minori's dictation. As soon as he had signed this paper, Katzan received his first hundred rubles-a month's pay in advance. On the very next day Katzan, in accordance with Hiroto's instructions, brought the General's letters to Siraisi's laundry before he took them to the Chief of Staff. There they were opened and the more important ones photographed. The second day he did the same. Having thus assured himself that Katzan was keeping his end of the bargain, Hiroto went on to Petrograd, leaving matters in Siraisi's charge.

About this time the military attaché at the Japanese Embassy in Petrograd was instructed by his Government to procure from the Russian Ministry of Communications the latest maps of the Siberian and Transbaikal railroads, which had been rebuilt after the RussoJapanese War, double-tracked, and provided with a great number of new buildings and sidings. These improvements were practically finished in 1913, but the Japanese had no exact information regarding them.

After the Embassy found itself unable to procure these maps and plans at Petrograd, it decided to try the railway's division offices at Omsk and Irkutsk. When Hiroto first visited the latter city in 1913 the Japanese had already tampered with an employee in the Omsk office, who had promised to get them the maps of the western

section of the road; but they had made no progress at Irkutsk, although the chief engineer of the Transbaikal section, who had his office there, was known to be a drunken, dissipated fellow. Siraisi was ordered to do the job, but he failed, and Hiroto had to come out to follow up the matter.

That was his errand on the occasion when he eluded us by leaving the train at Innokentievskaia station, driving to Irkutsk, and then dropping mysteriously out of sight. After dismissing his cab that day, he had gone directly to the Japanese brothel I have mentioned, whose keeper, as we learned later, handled all the mail and the money of the Japanese spies employed in that part of Siberia. While staying at this place he communicated with Siraisi and ascertained how Katzan was doing. Finding that the orderly's service was satisfactory, the fellow was offered an extra inducement to secure the name and address of the chief construction engineer. Katzan agreed to do so. It chanced to be precisely when the latter was delivering this information to Hiroto that my agent saw the two together and lost the latter's trail at the National Restaurant.

That very evening, as we afterward discovered, Hiroto had hired a conveyance to take him to the next station on the railway line east of Irkutsk, where he boarded a train for Manchuria Station on the Russian frontier. He secured the exclusive use of a compartment on the train by giving a liberal tip to the conductor. When the train reached Manchuria Station Hiroto left it, carrying a small traveling bag, and, jumping on a Chinese cart that was waiting for him, rode over to Manchuria Village. From that point he easily crossed the Russian border into China.

Subsequently, after Katzan had been sent back to his regiment by the General and was no longer able to supply

From the same source we ascertained these facts concerning the Siraisis: The elder man was a major of the Japanese Staff, who had resided in Port Arthur, disguised as a laundryman, before our war with Japan, when it was still in Russia's possession. His successful services there had caused him to be entrusted with the management of the whole espionage service in Siberia, which he was now conducting from his laundry in Irkutsk. He was a very clever man, but also exceedingly cautious. In fact he was too prudent to render the best possible service to his country. His assistant, whom he called his brother, was a lieutenant of engineers, and an extremely morose and unsociable man. This fellow confined himself to photographing documents, opening correspondence, and counterfeiting seals. Of the three laundry employees, two were noncommissioned officers, both of whom spoke some Russian. One of them was a trained detective who was used for outside work and knew how to manufacture cigarettes. The third employee was the only real laundryman in the establishment, and did all of its actual work.

The brothel keeper was a captain of the Reserve. His establishment's linen was taken to Siraisi's laundry to be washed twice a week, and all the latter's correspondence and documents were carried back and forth in these laundry packages. When it was urgent for anything to be dispatched immedi

ately, an extra bundle of linen was made up.

Every week, and sometimes more frequently, as the occasion of the service demanded, Japanese women inmates of the brothel left Irkutsk on the pretext of going back to Japan for medical treatment. They were always accompanied as far as Chang-Chun by a servant, and carried, concealed in their apparel, the secret documents that were sent to Japan - because women, especially sick women, were never carefully searched at the border. The women who went home were immediately replaced by others, who brought Siraisi in the same manner instructions and other papers from the Japanese intelligence service at ChangChun.

A Japanese captain resided at Chita, where he ran a Japanese store that really belonged to his Government. He was in charge of the whole espionage service east of Lake Baikal. The clerks in his store were also professional spies. He was second in rank to Siraisi, and often visited Irkutsk. Miamura's conversations with Lieutenant M- especially when he got voluble with vodka, thus proved a fruitful source of information. We learned, among other things, the mysterious story of Major Maori of the Japanese military attaché's office in Petrograd. When I was at Omsk inspecting the work of my department in 1913, I received a telegram from my lieutenant in Irkutsk telling me that this Major Maori had stopped for several days in that city on his way from Petrograd to Japan. After calling on the Commanding General he had put on civilian clothing and strolled through the city. In the course of his walk he had posted a large package at a letter box. We secured possession of this package and opened it. It contained a very complete plan of the

Trans-Siberian Railway, showing all the new constructions and changes of line up to that date. We showed this plan to our Chief of Staff, but that officer was unwilling to authorize us to detain and search Major Maori, on account of his diplomatic

status.

Fearing that Maori would escape punishment, I personally wired to the Chief of Staff in Petrograd insisting upon his immediate arrest. My telegram had the desired effect, and an order was given to do so. But by this time the enterprising spy had left the city. My lieutenant wired to Chita, however, and he was arrested there and taken from the train despite his vigorous protests. We discovered in

his luggage a map of the railway similar to the one he had posted at Irkutsk, and many other documents that proved clearly his espionage activities in Russia. When Major Maori realized that all his secrets had been discovered, and that further protests were useless, he requested permission to dispatch two telegrams, one to the General Staff at Tokyo and the other to the Military Attaché at Petrograd. They were almost identical in wording. In them he apologized to the Russian and Japanese Governments for his indiscretion. The one to Tokyo contained tained his resignation, and ended with the following words: 'I acted on my own authority, without instructions from anybody.'

March 6. Genoa. They're slow getting the baggage aboard. Our papers were ready at noon, but the last trunk and bundle were not on board until 4 P.M. After we finally started, we had to anchor again because the cable of the tug fouled our right propeller. At length we left, at 5 P.M., running into a fresh wind and heavy head seas from the south. Among our Genoa passengers are this season's members of the Italian troupe at the Metropolitan Opera. Jolly devils, every one of them. I have carried several of them before. But they don't take well with the other first-class passengers, and I expect we

1 From La Stampa (Turin Independent daily), April 15

March 27. At sea. Head winds. 272 miles. I have discovered among the second-class passengers a doctor named Bussi whom I brought over on a previous trip. He had then been in Argentina, out in the pampas, where he had made lots of money. He was paid mileage for visiting his patients - the farther away the sick man, the bigger the fee. Apparently imagining distances were still greater in the United States, he came to New York with his savings, full of anticipation of making

a vast fortune practising there. Now he is going back, glum and discouraged, in the second class. I suppose he has lost everything.

March 29. At sea. After a bit of nasty weather we have struck clear skies and blue water. Many of our cabin passengers are prosperous ItalianAmericans going back home on a visit. They have no idea how to behave in a first-class cabin, and spend most of their time playing cards with gorgeous Neapolitan packs that look like florists' lithographs. After each meal the stewards have to shoo them out of the dining saloon as you would a flock of chickens. Finally they scatter, most of them going down into the steerage, where their friends are or their relatives. We have husbands traveling second-class whose wives and children are in the steerage. Chivalrous people! I have also got the Bishop of Santo Domingo on board. He will talk of nothing but the remains of Columbus, which he pretends to have in his cathedral. He always drinks Xeres and Truxillo wines, insisting that any other kind of wine, even though it may be Spanish, makes him violently seasick.

March 30. At sea. - One of our firstclass passengers, a newly rich ItalianAmerican, objected when the first steward asked him to put on a collar at dinner: 'What! I pay five hundred dollars for my passage. Have I got to put on a collar besides?' He said this in broken English, to make it more impressive.

March 31. At sea. -One of our steerage passengers named Strameglia Sabino, a young fellow twenty-two years old, has died of nephritis. Two deaths so far! This poor fellow was nearly gone when they brought him on board. He was one of the many who have been picked clean by the doctors and their fellow countrymen. Then they shipped him off to sea to die there out of sight.