ENGELS TO JOHANN PHILIPP BECKER !%! 

London, 4 April 1881 

Dear Old Man, 

I am writing to you just before the post goes, having only this mo- 
ment got the money order, four pounds sterling = 100 frs 80 cts, 
which I trust will be paid over to you without delay. Your address 
was indispensable,* as the post office here znsists on it, otherwise no 
money order. I shall press Liebknecht about his false promises »; those 
fellows must do something for you. I’m glad, by the way, that our 
people have plucked up courage again; for a time most of them were 
suffering from a bad attack of cold feet; the paper,‘ too, is giving 
a good account of itself. That philistine Most is definitely in luck; his 
Freiheit was on its last legs, whereupon the British government felt im- 
pelled to give it a helping hand, and did so in the most brilliant man- 
ner. /?° Such colossal stupidity passes all belief, but it so happens that 
we have the liberals at the helm and they are capable of any stupid- 
ity, any dirty trick. They went ahead in such a hurry that so far they 
don’t even know under which Act they will charge Most! But Bis- 
marck needed this coup for his socialist debate in the Reichstag '*? 
and, since Gladstone, our premier, is an enthusiastic admirer of the 
bumped-off Alexander,‘ there was no difficulty about the thing. It 
will be all the more difficult for them to draw up an indictment, let 
alone produce a jury that will find Most guilty. So Most will become 
famous on the cheap, even if only for a brief spell, while Bismarck, 
even though he, too, may be gently rubbing his hands just now, will 
ultimately find himself discredited yet again. 

Kindest regards from Marx and your 
F. Engels