[London,] 9 June 1866 

Dear Frep, 
Many thanks for the £10. 
Whatever the pressure from events, my work‘ has been 
progressing poorly owing to purely physical factors ever since my 

4 nickname of Napoleon III (the name of a bricklayer in whose clothes Napoleon 
fled from prison in 1846) - > Ferdinand Lassalle - © on Capital 

return from Margate.*” I have been so low over the last few weeks 
that I have not been able even to attend the INTERNATIONAL 
Association any more. I had Gumpert’s prescription (for my liver) 
made up for me yesterday, as Allen’s stuff was of no use at all to 
me. Furthermore, I have had a tooth pulled, to put an end to the 
toothache, and probably a second one will have to go, too. 

If your wine-cellar permits (that is, if you are not thereby 
obliged to buy in more), I should appreciate it if you would send 
me some, as I am now forbidden beer altogether. 

The verses await your ‘commentary’. They are nothing in my 
hands. 

This evening I am compelled to go to the meeting of the 
‘DIRECTORS AND FRIENDS’ Of The Commonwealth The thing is on its last 
legs. Apart from the acute financial difficulties, there are internal 
political ones as well. Since that jackass of a Bradford manufacturer, 
Mr Kell (who has given £50, his brother ditto, and hints of more 
to come), has Miall entirely under his thumb, Dr Bridges, 
Professor Beesly, Harrison (the Comtists) have threatened not 
merely to resign but also to make a public statement about their 
resignation. 

I am tired of the business and shall propose to the people this 
evening that they should sell their bankrupt institution to Kell et 
Co. and put an end to the farce of «a Bradford MANUFACTURER 
directing a London ‘workers’ organ’. If they do not agree, I shall, 
at all events, announce my withdrawal. The paper cannot survive 
for much longer on its own resources, is therefore dependent on 
advances of bourgeois money, and thereby loses its own character. 
I have shown great patience in this matter, because I always hoped 
that the workers themselves would make sufficient efforts to 
continue the undertaking on their own; and, for another thing, I 
did not want to be a wet blanket. 

Mr Gottfried Kinkel has been appointed to a chair in Zurich. 

Since the sounds of war started up, the ‘Saxon’ workers have 
been flocking to join the ‘InTrernationaL Association’. 

Salut. 

Your 
K. M. 

Compiiments To Mrs Lizzy.* 
Apropos. Lafargue tells me that the whole new French school of 
microscopical physiologists, with Robin at their head, is pronounc- 

a Lizzy Burns 

ing against Pasteur, Huxley, etc., and in favour of generatio 
aequivoca* He is going to inform me of some new writings on the 
subject.