London, 5 April 1869 

Dear Freon, 

I can’t make anything of your snieunt (I can’t read the following 
letters) jown.* According to the etymology, I can only explain 
lucus a non lucendo> that in Danish snoe means turn, and jean 
means EVEN. 

I congratulate you on the energy with which you have cut the 
umbilical cord with Dover Street.‘ 

Laura is quite well again. Jenny will be coming home tomorrow 
or the day after ‘for business reasons’. Tussy will stay in Paris for 
at least 2 months. As you will note from the enclosed letter, she is 
absolutely delighted with Fouschtra,’ the vouncsrer of the Lafargue 
FAMILY. 

The Wilhelm-Bebel-Schweitzer clash of words has not really 
been so bad; after all, when of 11,000 voters, 4,500 abstained from 
voting for Schweitzer, this was not exactly a triumph for this 
gentleman. 

With regard to the Citizen,’ the contributors to which include 
Dr Engel of Berlin and Dr Brentano of the same, this appears to be 
stillborn or, as orp Werner says, ‘laid out’. Lloyd Jones is an old 
tailor by trade, who figured in a strike back in 1824. For a long 
time now he has been an apostle of cooperation, and a lazy-bones. 
Odger and Applegarth are both possessed by a mania for 
mediation and a longing for respectability. On the Centrar Counc, 
we ticked off Mr Applegarth properly.*”? With regard to Odger’s 
collaboration in particular, it never went further than the 
prospectus, and here people simply laugh at such promissory BILis on 
his part. 

In 2 issues the Bonapartist Peuple (directly edited with 
Boustrapa**°) denounces our International because of the recent 

a See this volume, pp. 247, and 251. - > Literally: ‘a grove from not being light’. The 
expression, first used by Quintilian in De institutione oratoria (I, 6, 34), illustrates the 
practice ascribed to ancient Roman etymologists of deriving words from their 
semantic opposites, as lucus (‘grove’) from lucere (‘to shine, be light’) because a grove is 
not light. - © See this volume, p. 251. - ¢ Charles-Etienne Lafargue 

exercises of terrorism in Geneva* (on the occasion of the 
typographers’ srrixe*”'), and, at the same time, makes mocking 
remarks about our impotence. It would naturally be very good to 
keep the volcanic explosion on such a small but conspicuous stage, 
if the means were available. But to drag in the International so 
directly, as Becker and Co. are doing, without preparation, without 
thinking about a war-chest, without taking into consideration the 
good or bad state of business in Europe—this is simply 
compromising. I shall send you the relevant numbers of Peuple after 
I have presented them to the Counci: tomorrow. 

Oberwinder has sent me the prospectus of his paper‘ for 
subscription. It appears twice a month, and costs 45 kreuzer per 
quarter. If I send the list back with subscriptions, 1 copy for you, 
1 copy for Moore, 1 for Borkheim and 1 for me, we shall have to 
send the total sum of 3 gulden. You can’t send the money 
individually, I mean for one copy. 

Enclosed Lanterne and Cloche and Werker. 

Do send me copies of Zukunft, so that I can see something about 
the Reichstag. 

And also, if possible, Manchester papers containing arguments 
about the price of cotton. The Liberal M.P. from Manchester is 
supposed to be agitating or spreading agitation amongst the 
workers in Stockport so that they should demand, directly from the 
GOVERNMENT, Cotton production in India, that is, PROTECTION IN ANOTHER FORM. 

Comptiments to Mrs Lizzie ON RESTORATION OF HEALTH. 

Salut. 

Your 
Moor 
I hope your eye inflammation has passed.