But, in addition to such diversions, Von Moltke's experiences in Turkey included many opportunities to become thoroughly acquainted with the face of the country and the characteristics of the various races inhabiting it. He accompanied the sultan during an extensive tour made by the latter among the Christian provinces, and gives an interesting account of the journey. At another time he was sent to Syria, where the royal forces were operating against Ibrahim Pasha, and here it was that the future great general went through his first campaign. That it ended in a most disastrous defeat for the side upon which he was enlisted does not seem to have been due to any want of energy on his part. Soon after this he gave up his post under the Turkish government and returned to his native land. W. W. C. PUNCHING THE DRINKS. The latest move upon John Barleycorn's works is engineered by the legislative wisdom of the Old Dominion. It consists in a bell-punch on the model, embalmed already in poetry, of the implement which forms the most conspicuous feature of the street-car conductor's outfit. The disappearance of each drink is to be announced to all within hearing by a sprightly peal on a kind of joy-bell Edgar A. Poe lived too soon to include in his tintinnabulatory verses. The chimes vary in intensity and glee according to the magnitude of the event they at once celebrate and record. Lager elicits but a modest jingle, whisky unadorned is honored with a louder greeting, and the arrival of an artistic cobbler at the seat of thirst is the signal for a triple bob-major of the most brilliant vivacity. On a court day, an election day or a circus day the air will vibrate to the incessant and inspiriting clangor; and as in one part or another of the Commonwealth one at least of those festivals so dear to freemen is in blast always, the din will be ended only by midnight, resounding over her whole surface from daylight to the witching hour. J.B.'s assailants, and their modes of attack, are innumerable. Every foot of his enceinte is scarred with the dint of siege, and from every battlement "the flight of baffled foes" he has "watched along the plain." Sap and storm have alike failed to bring down his rosy colors. Father Mathew, Gough, the Sons of Temperance, the Straight-Outs,--where are they? He stands intact and defiant. Should he surrender, it will be a wondrous triumph, and all the more so for the simplicity of the means. The marvel will be, as with Columbus and the egg, why everybody did not think of it long ago.