Dear Mohr,

The reason for my silence was that I wanted to tell you in my letter at the same time that the wine was being sent off. But the fellow who packs my wine has had an accident and will be laid up sick for at least a fortnight, and so I’ve not been able to get round to it until now; if possible I’ll pack it myself tomorrow. You’ll be getting very good 1863 claret and 1857 Rhenish; I’ve only a couple of bottles of Moselle left, and they’re in Mornington Street, where I can’t have them packed. Then I’ve also been chasing after the *Saturday Review* and managed to lay hands on the notice with much difficulty. If you haven’t seen it I can send you a copy – not much in it but still a good sign. I’ve got, at present, in addition to the heavy business of the annual closing and the work arising from the trade picking up again, as chairman of the Schiller Institute a damned lot of running about, since the matter of the building fund must be decided within a fortnight and until then all the work falls on me alone. I shall, however, make a start with the piece for the *Fortnightly*. However correct and interesting the subject of money may be for England, I still think it appropriate to let it recede into the background this time; it would distract from the main thing and require a long exposition simply to make the Englishman understand that what is at issue is simple money as such, which he is accustomed to conceive only in its entanglement with credit money, etc. What’s your view on this? The idea of Kertbeny to have you portrayed in the *Leipziger Illustrirten* is absolutely splendid. This kind of publicity penetrates to the philistine’s inmost bosom. So do give him everything he needs for it. The man is also otherwise useful, very willing, and has the need to get busy meddling everywhere and in everything. Vain, but not stupid for a Hungarian. His assessment of the German-Austrians at the time was very correct. The Pole Card has really placed an insoluble puzzle before me with his signature. Cwi...chiewicz—neither my knowledge of handwriting nor my philology suffices to solve it. Of course he would never do as a translator, and what Schily writes is very negative. If Reclus alone wants 3–4,000 francs, and Moses, who is to do the main work, also wants his share, and you pay the *droits d’auteur*, where is a publisher to come from? And to leave the “condensing” and “Frenchifying” to these people? Moses, who would be more capable of diluting the chapter on the formation of absolute surplus-value into 20 volumes than condensing a page of it by a single line? You have, however, yourself to blame for this; if you write strictly dialectically for German science, you later fall into terrible hands when it comes to translations, especially French ones. I’ve sent the *Frankfurter Börsenzeitung*, like everything else, to Meissner, from whom I’ve heard nothing since. I wrote him he should compose an announcement from the various articles. Liebknecht’s little paper displeases me to the highest degree. Nothing but disguised south German federalism. The article on Swiss and Prussian military history has been worked up, according to Grün (K.), in the *United States of Europe*, almost every word incorrect. At the same time there’s nothing at all in the little paper, and while he is thick as thieves with Hanoverian particularists and south German noddies, he attacks the Berlin *Zukunft* people, who—the devil knows—are at least every bit as good as this rabble. I have, by the way, received only 3 numbers. How little the Prussians trust the peace of the land in the new provinces is evident from the new dislocation and organisation of the army. E.g., 3 Hanoverian infantry and 2 cavalry regiments are stationed in Westphalia, at Wesel respectively, while in Hanover there are only 2 Hanoverian infantry and 3 cavalry regiments, but besides that, in Westphalia, 4 infantry and 2 cavalry regiments are stationed. In Schleswig-Holstein the native regiments are stationed indeed, with one exception, but alongside them 2 infantry and 2 cavalry regiments from the old provinces. In Hesse, nominally, 3 Hessian infantry regiments are stationed, but of these the 82nd (2nd Hessian) consists of Westphalians! At the same time the Nassauers have been shifted into Hesse, the Hessians into Nassau, and parts of both, together with old Prussian regiments, into Mainz. Frankfurt, finally, is kept in order by Pomeranian infantry and Rhenish cavalry. The great Borchardt seems to be nearing the goal of his career. You know that for years he has transferred his priestly inclination from the beautiful Frau Steinthal to the more beautiful Frau Schwabe, and every year, on account of her delicate health, escorted her to a German spa and fetched her back again, while the husband, for considerations of health on behalf of the wife, had to remain at home. Thus B. took her with him, as Schwabe and Knowles once told me, “to Königsberg for the coronation”—whereupon I naturally asked: “whose coronation?” Although I went on mocking the cuckold for a full half hour about the coronation and fat Knowles laughed aloud, the beast noticed nothing. Now, however, after the priestly doctor had kept the husband separated from the sick wife for years, it suddenly turns out that the sick wife is pregnant and expects her confinement around April. For this to happen, the high priest must, in a strange way, have been guilty of some carelessness or imprudence; enough, the cuckold suddenly sees the light, gives up his house here and moves to Berlin, sells his hunters although he is still here for the whole hunting season, resigns his club membership, and is so at odds with the high priest that when the latter here gets up a collection for the East Prussians and sends £700 to the *Zukunft*, the cuckold throws himself into the arms of the Prussian consul and, together with him, gets together c. £350 for the official committee. Upon this, great gossip among the philistines, and although the above story is only muttered about entirely in the dark, the high priest’s position is nevertheless greatly shaken, and many venture to speak of him with disrespect. He no longer looks so jolly and elegant either. I’m curious to see how it goes further. (N.B. The names from this story strictly between us.) Greet the ladies and Lafargue most kindly.

Your F. E.