London, 12 September 1868 

Dear Frep, 

Luckily the congress '** ends today and up to Thursday *—that 
is as far as the news goes—it had only compromised itself 
tolerably. But one must always fear some public disgrace, since the 
Belgians form the enormous majority. Mr Tolain and other 
Parisians want to have the General Councit moved to Brussels. 
They are very jealous of London. It is a great step forward that the 
Proudhonist ‘braves Belges’ and French, who dogmatically de- 
claimed against Trades Unions, etc., in Geneva (1866) and Lausanne 
(1867),'*° are now most fanatically in favour. In spite of all their 
boasting, the ‘braves Belges’ had made no preparations. For 
example, the correspondent of The Daily News hunted in vain for 
3 days for the possible meeting place until he accidentally ran into 
Jung and Stepney. In fact, the premises had not been booked in 
advance, and the ‘braves Belges’ wanted to charge the expenses 
(among others, those for their 250 participants) to the London 
General Counci., to which they and the French owe about 
3,000 frs. The sum is now being raised by private collections 
among the delegates. 

I am in a bad scrape. Laura has fallen sick since you were 
here,'*? and my wife was forced to borrow £10 from her simply to 
meet the extra expenses, as we are absolutely broke. 

I have heard nothing at all from Holland‘ and must therefore 
regard the silence as intentional. I really do not know what to do. 

Apropos. It was a good thing that we changed the word convicts 
into VICTIMS. 

a 10 September-> plucky Belgians-¢ from the Philips family-¢ This evidently 
refers to changes in “The Fourth Annual Report of the General Council of the 
International Working Men’s Association’ written by Marx (present edition, Vol. 21, 
p. 13). 

On the return of Shaw— who was sent at Moore’s expense *—the 
latter will receive his Receipt. 

Salut. Vie 

K. M.