[London,] 8 May 1869 
Dear Fred, 

In the main you had the right explanation for my obstinate 
silence: it came from the liver. However, there were several other 
additional incidents. D’abord,“ my wife was very unwell. As soon as 
the business had got a bit better, last Tuesday,’ she went to Paris, 
but arrived there quite benumbed. Paris has adopted the 
unmannerly custom of conforming to the London weather. When 
it rains here, it does there too, etc. Second, Eichhoff* arrived here, 
and is still here. And he arrived with a trio, a Berlin engineer, ditto 

a See this volume, p. 272.-> Ibid., pp. 272-73.-¢ Above all-4 4 May - 
€ Wilhelm Eichhoff 

merchant, and ditto banker. Their task here, and it seems to be 
succeeding, is to find names for the prospectus of a bank in East 
Prussia, which has already received a concession. Finally, there 
were the massacres belges.*” After addresses had streamed in from 
all quarters, as you will see from the enclosed papers, it finally 
became necessary for the Centra Counc.” to speak on this really 
important issue. I was appointed to edit the address. If I had 
refused, the business would have fallen into the hands of Eccarius, 
who would be a square peg in a round hole for a vital docu- 
ment like this. So I accepted. In view of the present state of 
my liver, it was very awkward to do it in English—since such 
things call for a certain rhetorical style—but then, in addition, the 
agony afterwards To po THIS In Frencu! But necessity knows no law, 
and I written Frencu. To start with, I wanted to send the thing to 
the Belgians in the original English, but our Belgian secretary 
Bernard (French by birth) declared to the assembled patres 
conscripti (last Tuesday‘) that it would be better to abandon the 
project altogether if the translation was going to be left to the 
Belgians, who only half knew English and absolutely no French. So 
I wap To cive way. You will be able to enjoy the thing in both 
languages. However, I left the German translation, which does not 
interest me, to Mr Eccarius, who also has a monetary interest.>“ 

But writing French, with or without liver, is dead easy if you 
give the public the sort of French used by Mr Urquhart in the 
Diplomatic Review which is travelling to you today. Astonishing 
double Dutch—even the original sample given by the grand and 
illustre Gaudissart* was nothing compared to this! 

After my wife left I would have been able to come to your place 
right away; and I would certainly have gained time by restoring 
the proper operation of this damnable sack of flesh earlier. But 
Jennychen was looking forward to my wife’s short absence in 
Paris, to have me entirely at her disposition and be able to let 
herself go. So I stay here! Apropos Jennychen, she claims that you 
know everything, and therefore wants to know from you: Why pip 
Mr ‘Excersior’,© OF THE ALPINE CLUB, NOT MARRY ‘Lapy CLARA VERE DE 
Vere’ !? 

About the French—Borchardt had his daughter II ask me 

a K. Marx, ‘The Belgian Massacres’. - & members of the General Council (originally 
collective tile of Roman senators) - ¢ 4 May - 4 Sigismund Borkheim - ¢ the main 
character of Henry Longfellow’s poem ‘Excelsior’ - f the main character of Alfred 
Tennyson’s poem by the same name - 8 M. Gromier. See also this volume, p. 267. 

about him *#”—I have only learned after a considerable waste of time 
that he is a lumpactus vagabundus,* who, however, held a susorvinaTE 
post on the Glowworm, a very susorpinaTE lousy sheet. Communicate 
this to the doctorly priest or the priestly doctor. 

Don’t forget to report to me on that Dr Heinemann or 
Manchester, the sub-Stieber on Hermann. 

As to Wilhelm”: Eichhoff brought Eccarius a gratification of £10 
(I believe Eichhoff paid it out of his own private pocket) for ‘my 
Mill’, but told me, in confidence, that ‘my Mill’* had been 
printed but now lay firmly aground with the Leipzig printer,“ who 
demanded exactly double the printing costs stated by Mr Wilhelm. 
Your steps were, therefore, prophetically correct. Meissner wrote 
to me more than a fortnight ago that he would start,*"” but NorHinc 
OF THE sort! This is really too much. 

According to Eichhoff’s report, credit swindling and the 
FINANCING game are at present so dominant in Germany that 
everything else is absorbed by them, as far as the upper classes are 
concerned. As for the workers in Berlin, he declares they are the 
most contemptible specimens in the whole of Germany. Even the 
imported ones are soon totally corrupted by the city’s atmosphere, 
and the ‘low-priced’ minor amusements. Bismarck, Duncker, 
Schulze-Delitzsch and Dr Max Hirsch compete for ascendancy in 
this sphere. 

The old Hatzfeldt’s Scurvy-Mende used to be an itinerant 
improviser and declaimer, a brute who belongs through and 
through to the lumpenproletariat. 

Hasenclever has allowed himself to be captured by Schweitzer. 
Eichhoff praises Bebel greatly. 

Harney—today under-secretary or something OF THE sort in the 
Home Department of the Commonweattu or Massachusetts (they still say 
officially ‘Commonweattn’ and not ‘Republic’)—in Boston, has sent £1 
membership fee to the Internationa Councit,* ditto a letter in which 
he asks after you very affectionately. Ditto, he says I should send him 
a copy oF Capital. He hopes to find a translator and publisher in New 
York. 

A Frenchman who has translated various volumes of Hegel and 
Kant has written to Lafargue stating that he wants to Frenchify 
the book, but—and what a visionary idea—for an honorarium of 
£60, for which sum he will also provide the bookseller. 

The International, the Bonapartist organ here, had the impu- 

a a vagabond rascal - > Wilhelm Liebknecht - ¢ Otto Wigand - 4 the General 
Council - € the first volume of Capital 

dence to state that the Genera. Counc, of the ‘Internationale’ no 
longer presides in London; that the leadership has now passed into 
the hands ‘d’un personage trés haut placé* in Paris.° 

For the subscription list for the Belgians it would be very good 
if you could also send us someruine from Manchester, and quickly. 

Apropos. In the report on the EMPLOYMENT of AGRICULTURAL CHILDREN 
(only 2 volumes out yet, Report I and Evinence), the Commissioners, in 
their preliminary resumé, present a variety of facts about the 
expropriation of the workers from common land, quite in my 
sense. 

My best greetings to Mrs Lizzy, Kinc Core or Coat,° and 
Joutymayer. 

Your 
Moor