Pawtucket tribune. (Pawtucket, R.I.) 1890-189?, 1891-11-07
THE PUNCHED K0PECK.

~
they could be read, would excel the most
txtrayagant imagiuings Of Your Belots
Ind Gaboriaus," said Il handsome, heav-
! lly whiskered man who was one Of a
little party of five gentlemen in n small
room in st. Petersburg private palace.
ave have excellent writers of fiction
here in Russia" 1.-TWO of his auditors were
Frenchmen), "and they sometimes go TO
the real for material, but ! am sure that
the shrewdest of them have never heard
Of the punched kopeck which belongs to
the annals of the police just mentioned"
The man with the whiskers emptied
his wineglass and pushed it away as he
continued:
about fifteen years ago Count Yasil-
witch was one Of the best known mobiles
of the empire. His St. Petersburg estab-
| lishment was conducted on a style of
royal magnificence, and he had the inn
perial ear oftener than any other man Of
his rank. Well, one morning the count
was found dead in his mansion and un.
der circumstances which went to prove
that somebody had helped him out Of
the world. As matter Of course the
INuASliiu llOllCb lOOh lHt dlldlI III manu-
and that was the last we heard of it.
"At that time there was said to be at
| tached To the Third section man named
Paritz. Rumor invested him with all
the attributes of the ideal sleuth. No
| body could be found who had ever seen
| him. but all the same the great discov-
cries in crime continued to be placed to
/ his credit. He worked out great results
! from impossible beginnings, and some
said that it was Paritz who was adding
most to the criminal population of ST.
! IBERIA. OF course every one expected TO
see Count Yasilvitch's enemy dragged to
light through the agency of this secret
man hound, but rs weeks and months
passed without anything of the kind
! transpiring, Paritz became the laughing
stock of St. Petersburg.
Count YGsilvitch was known far and
wide as = numismatist. His collection
Of coins was the most complete OF any in
the country, and had drawn from the
mint large offers of purchase. In the
collection We're two kopecks which had
been curiously punched through the
center. Count Yasilvitch valued these
coins above any in his possession, and IL
was understood that they had history
which he would not reveal.
when the police came TO examine the
counts coins after his death they discov-
cred that number of pieces were miss
ing, and among them was one of the
kopecks. OF course the authorities did
not care to publish their discovery from
motives which you can easily understand,
and the world ut large knew nothing
about it. The coin which was not taken
by the assassin. admitting this for our
storys sake, gentlemen, was given to the
misty Paritz, with orders to find its mate
and the counts enemy rs well.
"Paritz took the case with his usual
bow, and there the chief of police left it.
| The counts coins were put up for sale,
and the numismatists who were drawn
to st. Petersburg by the event wondered
what had become Of the punched kopeck.
| Half n dozen bidders stood ready to pur-
chase it at any price. Time rolled on
| and everybody forgot Paritz and his
trail. We did not hear so much about
his prowess now, and there were fewer
great discoveries in crime although the
number of exiles was not lessened.
81 recollect that | took considerable
interest in the trail of the kopeck at the
time. was rather intimate with q
member of the police, and he told me
much about the counts death and the
hunt. Bat question him rs adroitly as
| would, could learn nothing OF the
| identity Of the renowned Parltz. In
\ Il 4 4.
consider him myth, and to believe
that the name had become a general
| term for the Third section. | went
| abroad few months after the Yasil-
| witch mystery was sprung on society
/ and Travelled almost necessarily for ten
! years. | visited nearly every part Of the
! globe. finding wherever | went secret
! representatives, of our police. with whom,
| being a native Russian myself. / became
| as intimate ~ possible tried by these
1 means to keep track OF the mythical
| Paritz aud his trail. The secret agents
| had heard about the missing kopeck, but
they did not know how far Paritz had
! progressed, nor where ne was then.
There was something ludicrous in
the story of Paritz and the punched ko-
peck. The coin had continually bafied
! the czar's spy, and he had heard moth
ing of IL from the time it left Count
Yasilvitchs possession. Your French
detectives might have done better, but
poor Paritz, he could find nothing!
About a year ago interest in the
counts death was suddenly revived by
the arrest Of q man who had u lot Of rare
coins on his person. There was said TO
be some of these missing from the muir
dered mans collection, and they were
subjected To the closest scrutiny. The
fellow arrested was an honest and illit-
| crate mudjik, who averred that he had
| found the coins in the weed grown gar
| den attached TO the late counts resi-
| dence. He was not released till the gar
den had been spaded over for more coin
! by the authorities, whose labors were re-
warded by the finding of several rare
roublss known to have been described in
the Yasilvitch catalogue.
"Now more than ever Paritz and the
punched kopeck became objects of deri-
sion. Several Of the Russian newspa-
uers received pasqunades on the sub
| ! ct, out as matter oil course they were
| t1t published. A Russian editor is sup
| ,scd TO know just how far 10 go TO eat
! | is bread this side Of the frontier For
/ q. A