Letter to Friedrich Engels, March 10, 1870

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 10 March 1870


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 43


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 10 March[1] 1870

DEAR FRED,

Since I know this stuff amuses you, the following with all haste (post just closing): in addition to a few introductory marginal notes on Gladstone's latest declaration in the House of Commons about the PRISONERS, Jennychen sent the Marseillaise an extract from an older letter by O'Donovan Rossa, published in The Irishman on 5 February (I believe that was the date). The Marseillaise (in a truly French way it gives this letter as from 'Newgate') proceeds to publish this in a special issue on Tuesday evening, containing only articles by prisonniers politiques and costing 50 centimes.[2] This has now been reprinted (re-translation into English) this evening in The Echo, etc. Levy's Telegraph also refers to it in its Paris correspondence. The Irishman may well complain that it is not quoted as the source. But Jennychen will use this to demonstrate how the English press suppresses the FACTS published in the Irish press, and only publishes them as such when they come from Paris in some extraordinary manner. The English press will soon note that the idyllic days of systematic lying and hushing up the FACTS are over.

Pays remarks that the increase in the price of the Marseillaise to 50 c. is against all the rules, since 'prison goods are always sold cheaper than others'.

Salut

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ In the original 9 February is corrected to 10 March by Engels.
  2. ↑ An express issue of La Marseillaise (No. 79, 9 March 1870) carried letters of prominent members in the republican and the national liberation movements in France, Spain and other countries who in their time had been kept or were still in prison. Among others, the newspaper featured letters from Rochefort, Raul Rigo, O'Donovan Rossa, and a posthumous letter from Victor Noir. The headline opening O'Donovan Rossa's letter read: 'Letter of the Citizen O'Donovan Rossa, Fenian deputy to the British Parliament, condemned to the galleys and held at the Newgate Prison'.