Bristol WW1

At Bristol Police Court on Tuesday Carl Hendrick Wagner was charged with failing to register, attempting to elicit information with regard to the disposition of British forces, and with passing under an assumed name.

The prosecuting solicitor said that the prisoner, according to his own admission, was a German subject who left Hamburg on July 29th last year, and after spending some time in the United States, came back as a coal trimmer in a vessel bound for Sweden. The vessel was stopped by a British cruiser because she had contraband on board, and thus the prisoner got to Bristol. In the name of Charles Stephens he secured employment at a Government remount depot, and came into touch with British soldiers.

Evidence was given that to a Canadian who had joined a Bristol regiment the prisoner made a statement to the effect that he was a German officer and had sent two messages to Germany via the United States and Norway, and that since then two vessels had been torpedoed in the Bristol Channel. The Canadian, Lance-Corporal Stanley, pretended to be sympathetic, and the prisoner asked him to get information as to the departure of troopships and declared that he had attempted to poison a hundred horses at the remount depot, but they refused to eat the poisoned food.

The prisoner, in evidence, said that Stanley told him things which he did not believe, and he then told Stanley stories that were untrue. He was stranded in this country, and went to the remount depot to earn an honest living.

The prisoner was sentenced to six months' imprisonment with hard labour, and recommended for expulsion.

(Cambria Daily Leader, Wednesday 21st July 1915)
_________________________________________________