Letter to Friedrich Engels, September 17, 1853

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 17 September 1853


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart 1913
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 39


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 17 September 1853 28 Dean Street, Soho

DEAR Frederic,

You're becoming damned taciturn. Since I was expecting YOUR ARTICLE yesterday, all I had done was to make up a heading from the most recent news and, since the letter didn't come, one lot of correspondence went by the board.

I really must ask for your co-operation for the fortnight beginning today. For today Pieper is going, not into a monastery exactly, but into the German Hospital, a sort of medical prison, where he is to spend a fortnight or 3 weeks being thoroughly cured of the painful consequences of his carnal lust. Since I have in any case forfeited 3 or 4 articles through having to traipse off to that rotten Spielmann,[1] I must now write something every Tuesday and Friday so that the next bill I draw is not too paltry. There is a possibility of Freiligrath's finding a business friend who will regularly discount them for me.

If you can manage to do something in between times, I shall send you the other stuff to look through, in which case you will only have to preface or conclude it with the latest news you may have seen about TURKEY in the Débats, say, or some particularly important telegraphic dispatch, before sending the stuff to Liverpool.

I expect an article[2] from you for Tuesday.[3]

I think it important that something be said about the position of the armies, etc. There's a great deal of nonsense in the English papers, e.g. Omer Pasha is said to be crossing the Danube, etc.

I have already sent off two articles about the commercial crisis, 1 last Friday week about the Bank of England, its DISCOUNT and the effect of Peel's Act, or rather intended effect.[4] 1 last Tuesday on the price of corn, signs OF OVERPRODUCTION, etc.[5]

I think it important to have more details about the MANUFACTURING DISTRICTS.

Enclosed something further by the Tribune man[6] and on him by the EDITORS of the Tribune. It would seem, by the by, that he is not a Russian AFTER ALL, but A GERMAN. The abolition of the advertisement duty means that Jones' advertisements now bring him in £3 a week—the PAPER[7] IS ARRIVING TO THE PAYING POINT. This could also provide Pieper with a source of income.

When you write, you must also tell me about Lupus' travels. I heard later that he didn't push off from here until last Saturday.[8]

FAREWELL.

Your

K. M.

Enclosed another cutting from the worthy Neu-England-Zeitung.[9]

  1. ↑ See this volume, p. 356.
  2. ↑ The letters of Marx and Engels to The Times and The Daily News on the Cologne Communist Trial were not published in view of the editors' hostility to the leading figures of the revolutionary movement. The original of Engels' letter to The Daily News has not survived. It may be that Engels did not do the final editing (see this volume, p. 29). For Marx's and Engels' letter to The Times see Vol. 11 of the present edition.
  3. ↑ 20 September
  4. ↑ 9 September. K. Marx, 'The Vienna Note.—The United States and Europe.—Letters from Shumla.—Peel's Bank Act'.
  5. ↑ 13 September. K. Marx, 'Political Movements.—Scarcity of Bread in Europe'.
  6. ↑ Pulszky (see this volume, p. 288).
  7. ↑ The People's Paper
  8. ↑ 10 September
  9. ↑ Presumably Th. Poesche's 'Klassenkämpfer', Neu-England-Zeitung, 3 September 1853.