German Spies in England by William Le Queux

We can respect Lody; we can have no other feelings but the bitterest scorn and contempt for such traitorous miscreants as the ex-naval gunner, Charles Parrott, who, early in 1913, was sentenced to four years' penal servitude, under the Official Secrets Act of 1911, for selling official secrets likely to be useful to the enemy.

The class of traitor to which Parrott belongs represents the spy in his very lowest and most contemptible guise. About these wretched agents among us there is no redeeming feature. Patriotism is, to them, a word of no meaning; to their country they have no attachment: their one idea is to make money, and to do this they are willing to risk the very existence of the nation to which they belong. Show them gold, and there is no work on earth too dirty for them to undertake! And we have, I fear, many such men in our public services. It is men of this stamp who have made the very name of "spy" a by-word in all countries and all times -- not the men who risk their lives in order to gain an advantage for the cause to which they are attached by every sacred obligation of honour.