London, 15 January 1891 

Dear Baron, 

You will see from the accompanying corrected proofs* that I am 
not inhuman and have even gone so far as to inject some soothing 
morphine and bromide into the introduction,’ which no doubt will 
have a sufficiently anodyne effect on the melancholy mood of our 
friend Dietz. I shall only write to Bebel today.'?° I didn’t mention 
the matter to him before since I had no desire to place him in a false 
position vis-a-vis Liebknecht. He would have been honour bound to 
speak to the latter about it and Liebknecht, who has made extracts 
from the ms., as is evident from his speech on the programme at 
Halle,!?! would have raised heaven and earth to prevent its being 
published. 

If the passage ‘to attend to his religious as well as his bodily 
{needs]’° cannot very well stand, delete the five words underlined 
and insert dots. The allusion will then gain in subtlety and still be suf- 
ficiently comprehensible. In which case it will not, I trust, give rise to 
misgivings. 

For the rest I have obliged you and Dietz by doing everything you 
wanted and more, as you will see. 

The Mendelsons have arrived here from Paris. On his release the 
magistrate forbade him to leave France. The Minister, Constans, on the 
other hand, enjoined him to leave voluntarily, failing which he would 
be expelled.'?? Constans entrusted Labruyére, who is notoriously 
hand in glove with the police, with the task of spiriting Padlewski 
away. Had Padlewski appeared before a jury, the intrigues with the 

@ K. Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme.-” Preface to Karl Marx’s Critique of the 
Gotha Programme. -° While preparing the ms. for the press Engels for reasons of censor- 
ship replaced the word Notdurft used by Marx by the word Bedürfnisse and put it in the 
square brackets (cf. present edition, Vol. 24, p. 98). 

Russians would have come to a head. The activities of the Russian 
mouchards* in Paris could not have been concealed from the court and 
Padlewski might have been acquitted! Consequently he was an 
enormous embarrassment to the government and had to go. Ask La- 
fargue to write an article for you on the disruption by Padlewski of 
the Russo-French alliance.?'°! Liebknecht has got hold of com- 
pletely the wrong end of the stick, as he always does where foreign affairs 
are concerned. 

The Mendelsons arrived here without any addresses and fell into 
the hands of Smith Headingley and Hyndman who took them to 
a meeting,'?% etc. Finally they came to my house and I gave them 
Ede’s address; on my paying them a formal return visit for diplomatic 
reasons, who should come in at the door but Mr Smith Headingley. 
This gave me an opportunity to treat him with icy disdain in front of 
the Poles, which seemed to have the desired effect. They were here on 
Sunday, and today they, the Edes and Avelings are coming to dine 
at my house. This will doubtless frustrate the intrigues set in train in 
the interests of Brousse, Hyndman & Co. Pity you won’t be there. We 
start off with oysters. 

Your 
F.E.