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Globe, Volume II, Issue 177, 2 January 1875, Page 4

Three horses out of every four in Iceland are piebald. A white sparrow with pink eyes was caught a short time back at Wimborne in Dorsetshire, Its brethren had set upon it, and were pecking it furiously to death. A correspondent of the Times says :—The Turkish Government, according to a letter from Constantinople in the Allgemeine Zeitung, has announced that large numbers of oaks, beeches, and chestnuts in the forest of Belgradkoi, on the Upper Bosphorus, are to be sold by auction for fuel within the next eighteen months. This forest was always respected by the Byzantine Emperors and former Sultans, because on its existence materially depended the water supply of the metropolis. European papers speak of the inexhaustible resources of Turkey, but unscrupulous financiers are sacrificing these resources one after the other, as if their motto was " Apret nous, le deluge." The Mahomedan paper in which this sale is advertised contains an article entitled "Asia's cry of anguish," which represents that Asia, the mother of Islam and of all science and culture, is in danger of being overrun by the barbarians. The Russians, it complains, are navigating the Oxus in order to penetrate to the heart of Asia; the Dutch are stamping out civilization in Sumatra; and the English, under pretence of suppressing the slave trade, are persecuting Mahomedanism in India and Arabia; while the Asiatics, instead of repelling the Europeans, are at war with one another. An amusing story (says the Ballarat Star) has been going the rounds lately. A certain young lady, who considers herself in the cream of society, was betrothed to a wellknown merchant. Before the ceremony her " ma" persuaded her to pay a visit to the fashionable Bourke street drapers, where an elaborate trousseau was purchased to the extent of about £6O. Injunctions were given that the bill should be sent in to the expectant spouse, but not until a certain date, a few days after the ceremony, the approach of which was not of course mentioned. By an accident the bill was sent out at the end of the month in the usual course, and the bridegroom expectant, of course, at once called to explain to the drapery firm that being still a bachelor, he could not possibly have incurred a heavy liability for feminine f ippery. The state of the case was represented to him, the result biiig that he,declined to fulfill his matrimonial engagement and to pay the bill. The lady (says the Ballarat Star) is therefoie left without her sweetheart, and with her trousseau on hand for the next emergency of a similar character, for which " pa" will probably have to pay.