{London,] 10 May 1866 

Dear Fred, 

No carsuncies watever! But the accursed rheumatism and 
toothache have tormented me cruelly, until the former at last 
seems to be yielding to embrocation with pure alcohol. I must tell 
you candidly as well that my mind still feels somewhat weak and 
my capacity for work is only returning very gradually. Perhaps that 
can be attributed to the interruption in the arsenic treatment, 
which I started again after your last letter. 

Cohen **’ was a very good lad (although not particularly gifted) 
for whom I have a special regard as he was an old friend of my 
Musch.* Freiligrath naturally dashed straight to Blind yesterday 
and came to us from him. I was not at home. Freiligrath’s chief 
lament was the bad name Blind was giving him and _ others 
(nominal contributors to the Eidgenosse,” whose symbol is a hand 
holding a dagger with the motto ‘haec manus tyrannis’,“ etc.), He 

@ Marx's deceased son Edgar - > Der deutsche Eidgenosse-° ‘manus haec inimica 
tyrannis’—‘this hand is hostile to tyrants’ (an expression from The Life and Memoirs 
of Algernon Sidney) 

said he had not visited him for 9 months and that the affair was 
not even ‘excusable’. In short, he was in fact only upset about the 
possible impression the affair might make on the London 
philistines. By the by, our trickster from Baden duped him nicely 
again. He played the broken man and gave his friend Freiligrath 
no inkling that in the first throes of grief he had the presence of 
mind to exploit the tragic incident for some good advertising for 
himself and family in the various London papers. Always AN EYE TO 
business. His wife* is naturally inconsolable, and the funny thing 
about the affair is that Blind has by his idiotic regicidal blether 
sacrificed not his own son, but old Cohen’s Isaac, on the altar of 
freedom. 

In consequence of their sad experiences in 1859°°' the 
Austrians are in the accursed situation of being scarcely capable of 
grasping the favourable moment, and although they have been 
forcibly presented with the initiative, they cannot seize it, or at 
least they will hesitate greatly before doing so. Of course, European 
‘public opinion’ benefits them not a tittle and requires something silly 
of them. These same liberal jackasses, who are now generally 
admitting that Austria is the challenged party and that there is a 
systematic conspiracy against her, would tomorrow (the Enouiso Lorps 
included) scream with one voice if Austria were to strike the first 
blow and did not wait quietly for her enemies to give the signal. 

Repugnant though Bonaparte is to me, his coup in Auxerre did 
uncommonly amuse me.” That old jackass Thiers and the chiens 
savants of the Corps législatif,* who applauded him, fancied they 
would be allowed to play with Louis-Philippism unpunished! Les 
imbéciles! 

The Russians as always are playing their part to a T. Having 
encouraged their worthy Prussians, they enter on the scene as men 
of peace and arbiters of Europe, but were, at the same time, canny 
enough to inform Mr Bonaparte that Poland could not, of course, 
be on the agenda at any congress, in short, that Russia was entitled 
to meddle in European, but not Europe in Russian affairs. 

Following upon the importation of German and Danish tailors 
to Edinburgh, we have 1. sent a German and a Dane‘ (both tailors 
themselves) to Edinburgh, and they have already put an end to 
the understanding between importers and imported; 2. I have put 
out a warning in the name of the International Association to the 

a Friederike Blind -> An allusion to the Biblical legend about Abraham who 
sacrificed his son Isaac (Genesis 22:9). - © scholarly dogs - 4 Albert F. Haufe and 
N. P. Hansen 

German tailors in Germany.* The affair has been extraordinarily 
useful to us in London.*”” 

A very disagreeable matter for me was the necessity of paying a 
lump sum of £25 for school fees. This money, for 3 quarters, 
could no longer be put off as Jenny and Laura are leaving the 
school, the latter taking no lessons at all, and the former only one 
music lesson a week now outside school. (Baumer has resigned 
from the school, you know.) 

The Commonwealth is rapidly going from strength to strength 
and would certainly be paying within the space of a year. But it is 
probable that we shall soon have to suspend it for lack of money. 

Salut. 

Your 
K. M.