Wilna, April 20th. (By special cable to The Morning Roast.)—Five hundred thousand Red Guards, well supplied with heavy artillery and German engineers (Wurmtruppen), are advancing on the town. The Church Lads Brigade are parading the streets day and night to prevent looting. Outwardly the Burgomaster remains calm, but this morning he told me, with tears in his eyes, that unless three carloads of potatoes reached the doomed city before next Friday nothing could save it. “Ah,” he cried, “if only rich England would send us some of her tinned milk!”
Stockholm, April 21st. (From the Special Correspondent of The Daily Thrill.)—An extraordinary incident has come to light here. While the baggage of Mlle. Orloff, the famous danseuse, was being unloaded at the pier a heavy trunk dropped from the sling and crashed on to the wharf. Rendered suspicious by the lady’s unaccountable agitation, Customs officers searched the trunk and found at the bottom of it six hundred million pounds in bank-notes and a Russian named Oilivitch, who at first claimed to be a scenic artist, but finally admitted that he had been appointed by Lenin ambassador to the Netherlands. Communication with Scotland Yard has now established the astounding fact that he is the Abram Oilivitch who in 1914 kept a fish-and-chips shop in Lower Tittlebat Street, Houndsditch. Oilivitch first came under suspicion when it was discovered that Litvinoff had been seen to purchase a haddock at his shop. He was also known to have contributed eighteen-pence to the funds of the Union of Democratic Control, but afterwards recovered the sum, claiming that he had paid it under the erroneous belief that the Union of Democratic Control was an institution for extending philanthropy to decaying fishmongers. After disappearing from sight for a while Oilivitch was next heard of in the Censor’s Department, from which he was removed for suppressing a number of postal orders, but afterwards reinstated and transferred to the Foreign Office. He left the Foreign Office in June, 1918, as the result of ill-health, and was given a passport to Russia, where his medical adviser resided.
Later.—It now transpires that Oilivitch was also employed at the Admiralty, the War Office and the National Liberal Club. It has also been established that he was born in Duesseldorf and that his real name is Gustaf Schnapps. He is being detained on suspicion.