Letter to Friedrich Engels, August 29, 1860

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 29 August 1860


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
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 41


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 29 August 1860

Dear Engels,

Is there still an opening for Eccarius with the tailor in Manchester? If so, he must leave here as he's fit for work again (he's still living out here), business in London is bad and he would, besides, have to go back to the sweatshop.[1]

The wherewithal to send him up there with his FAMILY is heing procured down here.

For your information, I should tell you that I believe he is suffering from a disease of the spinal cord. His wife is a revolting creature, a curious amalgam of aspirations after respectability (CHURCHWARDENS DAUGHTER) and Irishness. Her housekeeping is sloven-

ly. As for him, his energy is of the passive kind—not at all active, particularly since the disease has grown worse. From the outset, therefore, he ought not to be cossetted in Manchester, should he come up there. For the thumbscrew will have to be applied to him, otherwise she will get ideas into her head.

I must have something about Garibaldi soon. That's the only thing that interests the Yankees.[2]

Today a letter arrived from my Berlin lawyer[3] containing his petition to the Supreme Tribunal. You shall have it later. He himself hasn't properly grasped the point about the flysheet and Blind[4] ; however, he's taken in the rest pretty well.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ See this volume, p. 172.
  2. ↑ On 1 September 1860 or thereabouts, Engels wrote the article 'Garibaldi's Progress' and a few days later the article 'Garibaldi in Calabria' (see present edition, Vol. 17). On Tiirr see Marx's article 'Affairs in Prussia.— Prussia, France and Italy' (ibid).
  3. ↑ J. M. Weber
  4. ↑ See this volume, pp. 23, 42, 59 63.