Manchester, 13 December 1868.

Dear Mohr,

If the envelope will take them, I shall send back Meyer & Serno; otherwise tomorrow from the office, where I have larger envelopes.

In Meyer’s case, the juxtaposition of Bohemians and Chinese amused me. Otherwise, his pseudo-Jakob Grimm style really gets a bit too much for me – the art of saying as little as possible through mysterious circumlocutions, and that little unclearly.

Serno, for a Russian, writes remarkably bad French; he must have been given a good deal of help with his pamphlet. If Schaute knew that you were corresponding with a Russian! You can then reply to him: 1) that the name Serno – as a masculine – is impossible in Great Russian because o is a neuter ending, whereas in Little Russian masculine names in o are very common, so the man is not a Muscovite at all but a Ruthenian – Maloróss. 2) that he is a born member of the sulphur band: serny – сѣрный – means sulphurous, from sera, sulphur; Solovjevič means son of the nightingale.

I am curious to see the little sheet of these people, especially what science Serno will develop, since he does so curse the ignorance of the French. However, such a French organ is always very good, much better than the Belgian Proudhonist sheets.

The business with Schaute is very pretty. Now I understand what you meant by the cotton story; you did, it is true, leave out that this also applied to the stocks of yarn and cloth. But then it should be noted that, in order to explain the matter rationally, you must include 1861, when the colossal 4 million harvest of 1860 gradually came over. How Ellison & Heywood can leave this out passes my comprehension, unless those people had some specific business aim in mind with their statistics. The great American harvest of 1860, which came to England in ’61 at the time of the paper blockade, is the basis of the whole of the later production. I shall try to send you what is needful on this, at least as far as raw cotton is concerned. Naturally, this does not alter the fact that but for the American war of 1861–62 a quite colossal collapse, and this time from pure, unadulterated and undisguised overproduction, would have been bound to come.

The adulteration with China clay (this china lies in Derbyshire & Staffordshire; it is fine potter’s clay, and china here means porcelain) first arose in 1863–64. For several years it was a secret known to relatively few. Recently someone was fined £1,060 damages on that account; I hope that, as soon as I am out of the business, they will also set about Gottfried over the talc stone he sells for cotton yarn. Tussy may well complain of the yarn when 25–30% of it is acid flour pudding sweetened with talc stone.

I am very glad that the arsenic has had such an effect and still does. I wish I were clear of the mess with G. Ermen. I cannot trust the dog an inch and must take every precaution. So far I have not even got the draft contract; he puts it down to the lawyer, but I’m sure he is himself still brooding over what chicanery he can put into it. Fortunately I have a letter from him in my hand, in which he himself makes me the proposal in question, and I myself drew up the memorandum that was given to the lawyer as a basis. But I already notice that he is keen for me to draw money out of the business before I have settled everything with him – that would give him a hold over me and he could squeeze me. As soon as I have the draft, however, and find that it is fairly drawn up, I shall send you enough for you to pay off your debts and keep some cash in hand, and from New Year’s Day the new arrangement will begin. Possibly I shall come to see you myself for a couple of days, but Schaute and Co. must on no account know about it.

Best regards to your wife and the girls.
Yours,
F. E.