2 April 1866. 5, Lansell's Place, Margate.

Dear Fred,

First, with best thanks, received the £10. During my absence a changement de décoration, or rather de direction, has taken place at the *Commonwealth*, which comes into effect next week. Odgers editor; Fox, subeditor; the ‘son of toil’ engaged to supply one article weekly for 10s.; Crämer out of place; has also handed in his resignation as Gen. Sec. of the ‘Intern. Assoc.’ On the whole I have nothing against the change. Eccarius could hardly (or at least should not) imagine that he would be left with the nominal management once the paper had gained a position. I had warned him in vain. It was a ‘political’ mistake on my part to yield to his urging and to propose him in a letter for the post now vacated. Had I not been ill, he would have knocked in vain. I knew in advance that the matter would fall back on me. Avoidance of any semblance of personal intentions or abuse of personal influence for secret purposes, and good understanding with the English, must naturally be more important to us than satisfying Eccarius’s more or less justified ambition. Such dry natures as Eccarius also possess a certain dry egoism that easily leads them astray. When the Reform Ligue decided on the great meeting in St. Martin’s Hall, the Council of the Ligue appointed him as one of the public speakers. The fellows of Potter’s clique protested against him as a Foreigner. I expressly warned him not to accept his ‘brief’. But he thought he was over the hill and tickled himself with the important role in the metropolitan movement. And he was a dead failure. The poor fellow has of course lived through a life of disappointments, and the honorary posts the English spontaneously accorded him, as Vice-President of the ‘Internat.’, etc., deceived him to the point where he now imagined he could suddenly take revenge for his entire past. Had he followed me, proceeded slowly, maintained a modest attitude, everything would have gone for the best. If, despite his lack of discipline and his stubborn behaviour, I even went into the mire for him, I was prompted to do so particularly by the consideration that he has always worked with us and never reaped any fruits. But one always makes blunders when one lets oneself be influenced by such considerations. As for the newspaper itself, the danger exists – on account of lack of fonds – in the growing encroachment and preponderance of the Nonconformist clique. The cursed traditional character of all English movements shows itself again in the Reform movement. The same ‘instalments’ that a few weeks ago were rejected with the utmost indignation by the popular party – they had even thrown out Bright’s ultimatum of household suffrage – are now treated as a prize worth fighting for. And why? Because the Tories are shouting Zetermordio. The fellows lack the mettle of the old Chartists.

What do you think of the Austrian-Prussian turmoil? I see no continental paper at all. So much, however, is clear to me, that behind the Prussians stands Russia, and that the Austrians, who know this, nolens volens console themselves with French backing. Fine game of these principal fatherlanders! That is the eternal dilemma into which the German philistine drives us ever anew. For Bonaparte, a real civil war in Germany would be a true godsend. Of course, it always remains possible that the affair may end one fine morning with the simple deposition of the worthy Bismarck. But since Düppel, ‘William the Conqueror’ believes in the invincibility of his ‘glorious armies,’ and a second Olmütz, in the event of internal conflict, must appear risky even to him.

The weather here has been very bad for a few days, as if made to order for the Cockneys who have invaded this place for the Easter holiday.

How long is the arsenic to be taken?

My compliments to Mrs Burns.

Your K. M.

My friend Kaub writes me from Paris that a certain M. Rebour has found means to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen by a method which would cost 2 sous a day for a fire to melt iron with. For the time being, however, he is still treating the matter as a secret, as on an earlier occasion a discovery was stolen from him and patented in London. Qui vivra verra. You know how often we two have dreamt of a cheap way to make fire from water.