[London, about 12 December 1853] 

Dear Engels, 

From the telegram I received from you this morning I naturally 
cannot tell: 

1. Whether Cluss’, etc., answers? and the issues of the Reform 
relating to Willich have reached you from New York. The 
contrary would seem possible, since Mr Lupus, in a fatuous letter 
to Cluss, seeks to conceal his laziness by inveighing against 
Wevydemeyer. 

2. Has Dronke returned the relevant numbers of the Criminal- 
Zeitung’? I asked Steffen to get you to send them to him in 
Chester, since I can’t do without the one copy I have down here. 
When— induced by you—I came in my last letter to speak of the 
odd affair of ‘the well-known gentleman, Dr Dronke’s’ statement, 
it occurred to me that the immediate upshot would be that I 
would get no private letters from you until the affair could be 
assumed to have blown over—say a week or two. At least, that is 
the method which, since Mr Lupus’ arrival in Manchester, you 
have adhered to with unusual consistency in all matters concerning 

4 Cluss to Marx, 13 November 1853. - > J. Weydemeyer, A. Cluss, A. Jacobi, ‘An 
die Redaktion der New-Yorker Criminal-Zeitung’, Belletristisches Journal und New- 
Yorker Criminal-Zeitung, No. 37, 25 November 1853. - © K. Marx, ‘The Knight of 
the Noble Consciousness’. - 4 See previous letter. - © ‘Werbungen in New-York’, 
‘Das Wirken der “Militir Kommission”’, Die Reform, Nos. 87 and 88, 19 and 21 
November 1853. - § containing Willich’s ‘Doctor Karl Marx und seine ‘“Enthiil- 
lungen”’ - 8 See this volume, pp. 400-01. 

myself and the two gentlemen. Hence, if our correspondence is 
not to be reduced to mere telegraphic exchanges, it would be 
better if both of us were to omit in future all allusions to your 
friends and protégés up there. 

Salut. 
Your 
K. M.