NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE war news of the week is insignificant. On Saturday both the Daily Telegraph and the Standard had special telegrams assert- ing that a great battle had been fought by Mehemet All against the army of the Czarevitch at Biela, in which the Russians had been defeated, and their loss had been 8,000 men, the Turks only admitting to a loss of 4,000. The same. rumour was repeated by Baron Reuter's Agency, but with the more modest figures of 800 and 400, instead of 8,000 and 4,000. The truth was that on Friday, the 21st, there was a Turkish reconnaissance in force on the Russian right wing at Cerkovna, not far from the northern mouth of the Shipka Pass, in which the Turks are said to have achieved pro- digies of gallantry, with no result. The Turks retreated, having lost, it is said, about 1,000 men ; while the losses of the Russians, who fought behind entrenchments, were about half that number. Mehemet Ali, after receiving this check, seems to have retired behind the Lom. Such was the trivial and unsuccessful opera- tion thus reported by the Daily Telegraph on Saturday, "from 1:)ur special correspondent :"—" Shumla, Friday. Mehemet Ali as won a grand and decisive victory at Biela. The Russians were completely routed, leaving 4,000 men dead and 8,000 wounded." On Monday the following explanation of the "grand and de- cisive victory" asserted at Shumla was sent from Constantinople : —" The telegram which I transmitted to you on Friday night from Shumla now appears to have been based on an erroneous or pre- mature report from the head-quarters of Mehemet Ali." But even had Mehemet Ali won his great victory on Saturday or Sun- day,—which he did not,—it strikes us as rather a euphuism to take credit for a fiction told on Friday, on the ground that it had merely been a foreshadowing in the reporter's mind of a different event occurring on Saturday or Sunday. 'It's my birthday to-day,' said a sharp child. 'Is it, my dear, then here's a birthday-present of a shilling for you ?" How can you tell the gentleman such a fib, you naughty boy?' remarks the child's
mother. Oh !' says the urchin, pocketing the shilling, it was only premature. It will be my birthday in a month or two.'
