27 Jan. 1870. Dear Fred, I am still under treatment and confined to the house. The matter was somewhat complicated by small carbuncles near the abscess, which was almost the size of an egg. But in a few days all will be quite right. Strange how doctors differ in opinion. Dr. Maddison, who was employed in a skin hospital in Edinburgh and still attends to this branch alongside his private practice in a London hospital, says that in both hospitals they are entirely against arsenic for carbuncles, but do use arsenic for skin rashes. As long as I am under his care, which ends this week, I naturally take his medicine. As soon as that ceases, I shall take arsenic regularly for 3 months, for il faut en finir. Enclosed the indicated note from Wilhelm. When you write to him, do write him (with reference to the scrawl to me enclosed herewith) by the way, 1) that if all journals talked as much about the ‘18th Brumaire’ as his, namely not at all, it is no wonder that nobody hears about it; 2) that if [[I consider it humbug]] the thing is not to be had in Leipzig, one should not on that account write to me, but directly to Kugelmann and Meissner. Enclosed letter from Dr. J. Jacoby to Kugelmann and note from K. The matter hangs together thus: K. saw from No. 18, supplement of the ‘Zukunft’, (22 Jan.) a speech by Jacoby in which he professes socialism, and in the main sheet of the same number the account of the meeting where this took place, in which Schweitzer, by means of his cudgel-guard, seized the chairmanship and after the end of J.’s speech reproached him and others that he had borrowed arguments from me. Thereupon Kugelmann immediately writes to Jacoby with his usual zeal, congratulates him and at the same time gives him a blowing-up for citing all sorts of people, but precisely not me, who supplied him with the actual content. Hence J’s reply. The only funny thing is that J. – during the meeting, in reply to Schweitzer – says, I myself ‘use in my works countless times the labours of my predecessors.’ So, because I conscientiously cite everyone who has contributed even the smallest iota to the development – it follows that J. may take the substance of his new faith from me without citing me. Besides, I am not the ‘predecessor’ of the 70-year-old Jacoby. A mere populariser and vulgariser has no ‘predecessor’. Yet for all that it is very fine that Jacoby, like Arnold Ruge, has converted to communism. The ‘Freiheit’ can’t go on any longer! I am sending you the last number of the ‘Democratic News’. The paper is not yet worth anything, but it belongs to our people and can be made into a counterweight to the Bee-Hive, especially as it costs only 1 halfpenny. You and Moore must each subscribe for 12 copies, as a similar subscription has also been imposed on the members of the General Council. Moreover, one of you two could send, through me, very short reports about Lancashire etc. weekly or fortnightly for the little paper. Salut D KM