Letter to Karl Marx, Between September 24 and 26, 1859

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 24 September 1859


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


283

ENGELS TO MARX[1]

IN LONDON

Manchester, 7 Southgate [between 24 and 26 September 1859]

Dear Moor,

Enclosed fiver B/B 95281 Manchester, 1 January 1859. Shall deal with the other matters very shortly. For the present just one more point to which an answer is required by return if possible.

1. How much money is needed to return to those subscribers to the Volk who have paid direct, the few pence due to them in respect of undelivered copies?

2. What arrangement was made about this with Thimm and others? Have the booksellers deducted what was not delivered, OR HOW? Or not paid at all yet?

I must have clarification of these matters, if possible at once, and I shall, if possible, raise the money—it can't amount to much—to settle the sorry business of the direct subscribers. Up here the bourgeois are complaining like mad that they've been cheated, and Lupus and I have to swallow it all. So let me have an answer at once. The day before yesterday Lupus was involved in a row on this account and I shall have to see the 'third party' as soon as possible.

Infantry is in hand and if at all possible I shall finish it before the week is out.

As to my own affair up here, surely you don't imagine that I, for my part, didn't also have SENSE enough to hand the thing over to a LAWYER and listen to his opinion. It's not a case of some miserable fine imposed by a magistrate but of an ACTION AT NISI PRIUS FOR DAMAGES, in which the costs alone could be as high as £200. You surely don't imagine that I shall let myself be swindled like this without lifting a finger; as to running away, I need hardly say that, my circumstances being what they are, there can be no question of it, even for a fortnight; and being as well known in Manchester as I am, no one here would imagine that I would run away from the firm, etc., in order to escape a lawsuit of this sort.

The real joke is that the use of pretty well any instrument gives a LAWYER a HANDLE with which to sway a BRITISH JURY, namely moral indignation at BLOODY FOREIGNERS who don't use their fists, etc. In which case the verdict goes against the FOREIGNER as sure as 2x2=4, and on top of that he has to fork out the costs. Anyway you can count on it that I shall fork out no more than is absolutely necessary. As yet the affair hasn't progressed an inch but I hope it will soon be settled so that I may at least get a clear idea of what can be done to help you through the crisis.

Many regards to your wife and the girls.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ The letter is not dated. It was written in reply to Marx's letter of 23 September 1859. Marx answered it, presumably, on 27 September (see Note 480). So this letter seems to have been written between these two dates.