Letter to Rudolf Schramm, May 6, 1858

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 6 May 1858


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXV, Moscow 1934
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


ENGELS TO RUDOLF SCHRAMM

IN LONDON

[Draft]

Manchester, 6 May 1858

To Mr R. Schramm in London

I have just received your note dated the 3rd. After the death of my friend, Conrad Schramm,[1] I instructed Mr Harney to return to us, not you, the letters from Marx and myself found among his papers,[2] since those letters were not intended for you. And this indeed was done.

I can see no reason whatever why I should discuss with you matters which concerned no one but myself and my late friend

and party comrade. While Conrad was still alive your own friends were surprised at the indifference you showed towards his financial circumstances.

In so far as I had anything to say about the disposal of Conrad's effects, I have said it to his only possible executor, Mr Harney.

As to my 'sense of justice', which has nothing whatever to do with the case, you may perhaps have occasion to become better acquainted with it some day in Germany.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

F. E.

  1. ↑ Conrad Schramm, a member of the Communist League and a close friend of Marx and Engels, was ill with tuberculosis. In 1852 he went to the USA hoping to earn a living and improve his health. In the summer of 1857 he returned to London and, his condition having worsened, he was immediately placed in a hospital for German refugees. On 20 September he moved to Jersey where Engels too soon came for treatment. Schramm died on 15 January 1858.—158, 171, 312
  2. ↑ See this volume, pp. 252 53.