STANDARD OF THE JANISSARIES.
Odd as it may seem, a soup-kettle is the standard of the Janissaries, an emblem rather more appropriate for a Court of Aldermen. Dr. Walsh says that he saw in the streets of Constantinople, an extraordinary greasy-looking fellow dressed in a leather jacket, covered over with ornaments of tin, bearing in his hand a lash of several leather thongs; he was followed by two men, also fantastically dressed, supporting a pole on their shoulders, from which hung a large copper kettle. They walked through the main streets with an air of great authority, and all the people hastily got out of the way. This he found on inquiry was the soup-kettle of a corps of Janissaries, and always held in high respect; indeed, so distinguishing a characteristic of this body is their soup, that their colonel is called Tchorbadgé, or the distributor of soup. Their kettle, therefore, is in fact, their standard, and whenever that is brought forward, it is the signal of some desperate enterprize, and in a short time 20,000 men have been known to rally round their odd insignia of war. Apropos, have they not something to do with kettle-drums?