Manchester, 27 September 1869 

Dear Moor, 

Since there is nothing doing with Eichhoff* it would be better if 
Wilhelm were to print the Peasant War than for it not to be 
printed at all. So I shall go through the piece right away. 
Incidentally, Wilhelm can write to me himself about it; he still has 
not replied to my last letter, and I don’t see why I should make 
advances to him.*?! 

Lafargue is madder with his doctoring than I expected. You 
must really take energetic steps, otherwise there might really be a 
misfortune.* 

We returned safely from Ireland last Thursday‘; were in 
Dublin, the Wicklow mountains, Killarney and Cork. Greatly 
enjoyed ourselves, but both females returned even hiberniores 
than when they departed.*”! Weather fine on the whole. According 
to the papers the weather with you is now even worse than here. 

Learned from Trench’s Realities of Irish Life the whole secret of 
why Ireland is so ‘overpopulated’. The worthy gentleman proves 
with examples that, on average, the Jand is worked by the Irish 
peasants to such degree that an outlay of £10-15 per acre, which is 

a My heartfelt greetings to the whole family and - > On the inside of the letter: ‘To 
Laura’. - © See this volume, pp. 282 and 297. - 4 Ibid., p. 353. - ¢ Ibid., pp. 348 and 
351. - £ 16 September - & more Irish 

completely paid off in 1-4 years, raises the rental value from Is. to 20s., 
and from 4s. to 25-30s. per acre. This profit has to be brought into 
the pockets of the LANnpLorps. 

Mr Trench, in return, is nicely checked by his own statements 
to Senior, which the latter has had published.* Trench tells the 
liberal Senior that, were he an Irish peasant, he too would be a 
Risponman *°} 

I would have visited Dietzgen from Engelskirchen, but the 
highway to Siegburg had just been washed away and communica- 
tions almost broken off. 

Can’t Jenny write to the Monroes, I should have thought the 
matter could be arranged.” 

Treland’s trade has grown enormously over the last 14 years. 
Dublin port was unrecognisable. On Queenstown Quay I heard a 
great deal of Italian, then Serbian, French and Danish or 
Norwegian. THERE ARE INDEED A Good MANY ‘Itatians’ IN Cork, as the 
comedy has it. The country itself really looks depopulated, 
however, and you immediately get the idea that there are far too 
few people. Everywhere you are faced by the state of war. The 
Royal Irish rush about everywhere in squads, with sheath-knives 
and sometimes revolvers at their belts, and unsheathed police 
batons in their hands; in Dublin a horse-drawn battery drove right 
through the centre of town, something I have never seen in 
England, and there are soldiers literally everywhere. 

The worst thing about the Irish is that they become corruptible_e 
as soon as they cease to be peasants and fall into bourgeois ways. 
Of course this is true of most peasant nations. But in Ireland it’s 
particularly bad, so the press is also particularly scurvy. 

Moore is in the Tyrol; will probably return next week. 

I expect you'll be going to Hamburg and seeing Meissner. 
so, you may mention to him that I am working on something 
about Ireland, and will offer it to him in due time.** 

Hearty greetings to Jenny and Kugelmann. 

Tussy and Lizzie also send greetings. 

437 Ir 

Your 
F. ES