Many facts relating to foreign countries, which strike Englishmen as being curious to a degree, reach us from time to time. A Spanish soldier, we are told, will fight for a week on an empty stomach, provided he can look forward to playing his guitar on the seventh day. In his country, if a bull intended for the fight falls ill, the animal is sent to an infirmary. The chief toreador Frasculeo has a fortune of two million francs; his combat costume represents one hundred thousand francs in diamonds alone; he is courted by the highest society in Madrid, is a member of the chief aristocratic club; yet his wife is a fishmonger’s daughter, and still helps her mother in the market. On days when her husband performs she sits at her balcony with her children to receive couriers, who come on horseback waving a white flag as a sign of success in the arena.—The account of how a titled lady in Russia has discovered to her cost the penalties of expressing in too emphatic a manner her disapproval of her governess’s behaviour, will, if true, convey a curious idea of some social customs in that country. The Princess Manweloff had a habit of striking her governess, a lady of noble birth, and the latter complained of her to the local justice. In this instance the law was a respecter of persons, and the Princess was ordered three days’ detention in her own house. The governess was dissatisfied, and appealed to a higher court, which sentenced the defendant to three months’ imprisonment in the common jail.—As a curious fact, it has been noted by Sir Samuel Baker that a negro has never been known to tame a wild elephant or any wild animal. The elephants employed by the ancient Carthaginians and Romans were trained by Arabs and others, never by negroes. It had often struck Sir Samuel as very distressing that the little children in Africa never had a pet animal; and though he often offered rewards for young elephants, he never succeeded in getting one alive. A curious instance of the acquisition and rejection of fortune reaches us from New Orleans. A stableman named Pathier, belonging to an hotel in that city, suddenly found himself heir to eighty thousand francs at the death of his mother; yet strange to say refused to accept the money. The law has in vain endeavoured to induce him to avail himself of the windfall: his only ambition is to smoke his pipe and groom the horses. To such an instance of contempt of riches it would be difficult to find a parallel.