WHERE IS GENERAL ROTH? TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE Courier is great in geography. Names that would break any civilized jaw to give utterance to, are as familiar to it as household words. Towns, rivers, mountains, that no one ever heard of before on this side the Alps, it can discuss as glibly as a linendraper's appren- tice does Primrose-hill, Knightsbridge, and the Serpentine. Last Tues- day it set about ascertaining the exact position of General ROTH; of whom, it seems, we have had very little intelligence for some time past. The Fourth Bulletin only stated that he was engaged in completing the union of his corps before KOSLANDJI. Our contemporary on this hint inquireth- " Had they been separated by the attack of the Turks on the 17th? Had any fresh affair occurred after the 17th? Or had his loss been so great that lie was obliged to fall back to KOSLANDJI to wait for reinforcements from Varna, or from the main army under Count Diebitsch ? These are points which we are about to discuss."
If any one ask, how points that are unknown are to be discussed, we tell him that he is a very hasty gentleman : let him read, and learn the art of proving the ignotum by the ignotius. "we had not in the Fourth Bulletin any account of the day when General Roth was at KOSLANDJI. But it must be considered as a retreat from the position which he occupied on the 17th ult.; for on that day he was between ESKT-ARNAUTLER and the heights which are midway between ESKI-ARNAUT- LER and PRAVADI, whilst the Grand Vizier was on the heights ; having, as must be supposed, made himself master of PgAvAni in his rear, for had he not taken it he would hardly have placed himself in such a situation as to be between two fires—the Russian force in his rear, and General Roth in his front.'
Is there a man that after this learned statement cannot put his finger on the missing General? or find his way from Eski-Arnautler to Pravadi, and from Pravadi to Koslandji, and back again, without the help of a finger-post ? If there be, let him perish in his ignorance, for he is unworthy of instruction.
Previous page
