It is now quite clear that on Monday week (the
17th of Septem- ber), the Turks did not carry Fort St. Nicholas, in the Shipka Pass, at all. They carried the first line of trenches and hoisted a white flag with a red crescent on the rock, which was all•they meant by saying that the Turkish flag at last floated over Fort St. Nicholas. They never reached the citadel, and at noon were beaten back, with tremendous loss. The loss of the Turks in dead alone was not less than from 2,000 to *3,000, while the Russians lost thirty-one officers and a thousand men, killed and wounded. Of course, however, the false news was only " pre- mature." Suleiman Pasha is still as confident as ever of victory, and the forestalling of the victory by days or months is only the error of a too hasty imagination. Still, as a rule, we like news to relate to the actual past, rather than to the contingent future.
