Manchester, 8 May 1870 

Dear Moor, 

With his plot-comedy, Mr Pietri appears to me to have far 
overshot the mark. In the end the policemen don’t even believe 
one another’s buffoonery. It’s really too fine. This scurvy 
Bonaparte has a fixed remedy for every sickness; in case of a 
plebiscite, the populus must be given a dose of assassination, just as 
every quack begins every bigger treatment with a strong laxative. I 
am longing to hear the result of the treatment; so far I know only 
about the Paris vote, which was so good that all forgeries by 
officials could not falsify it completely.°” 

The Daily News and Observer virtually announced that the 
English police had obtained the necessary and telegraphed it to 
the French police. With the Fenian scare the English police have 
completely dropped their disguise and are baser than any other. 
NB. Do use thinner paper for your envelopes; I could open these 
thick envelopes without leaving a trace. 

You really should publish in France and Germany the heroic 
deeds of the English police regarding the International and 
Flourens.* 

10,000 corizs=£40 is damned cheap; I would have expected 
The Standard to sell itself dearer. This manner of bribery has, how- 
ever, long been common here. 

Flerovsky does not appear to have been confiscated; there are 
copies at least in Leipzig. My bookseller, the jackass, did not order 
the Russian text but a non-existent English translation. Hence the 
non-arrival. 

So Keaexons (Kolokol] will be even finer under Bakunin than it 
was under Herzen. 

Monsieur Wilhelm‘ is no longer to be borne. You will have seen 
that ‘owing to the absence of the printer’ (who is, thus, the real 
editor), the Peasant War was printed in a mix-up that Grandperret 
could not have managed better and, at the same time, the 

a See this volume, pp. 504-06. - > H. @aeposcxii, Moaoocenie pabouazo Kaacca eb 
Pocciu. - © Wilhelm Liebknecht - 4 F. Engels, The Peasant War in Germany. 

dunderhead has the impudence to affix marginal notes that are 
complete nonsense, without any note as to authorship, and everyone 
will ascribe them to me. I have already forbidden him to do this 
once before, and he was piqued; but the nonsense is laid on so 
thick that it is no longer bearable. Ad vocem* Hegel, the fellow 
glosses: known to the general public as the discoverer (!) and 
glorifier (!!) of the royal Prussian state concept (!!!). I have retorted 
to him suitably, and have sent him, for publication, a declaration 
as mild as was possible under the circumstances. This dunderhead, 
who has been jogging around helplessly for years on the 
ridiculous contradiction between right and might, like an infantry 
man placed upon a horse with the staggers and locked in the 
riding-school—this ignoramus has the insolence to wish to 
dispatch a man like Hegel with the word ‘Preuss’ and, at the same 
time, suggests to the public that I had said it. I have now had 
enough of the whole thing. If Wilhelm doesn’t publish my 
declaration, I shall turn to his superiors, the ‘Committee’,° and if 
they also get up to tricks, I shall prohibit any further publication. I 
would rather not be published than let Wilhelm proclaim me a 
jackass thereby.” 

Borkheim, returned enclosed. The fellow is gracious enough to 
wish to find Lever jocose. ‘Boquillon’* is very nice; I haven’t yet 
read the other things. 

I can tell you nothing about Schapper that you do not know 
yourself or you could not get much better from Pfänder. 

The Koélnische Zeitung has been gammoned into writing that the 
floor of the Atlantic Ocean is covered with protoplasm—‘a moving 
slime that nourishes itself’. 

In London ctay, Owen has found the skull of a giant bird, similar 
to the great wingless birds of New Zealand. 

The jolliest point about old Irish law“! is the family law. Those 
must have been free-and-easy times. Polygamy existed, was at least 
tolerated, and the concubines here were divided into 6-7 classes, 
including one, the imris, ‘whom HE (THE MAN) HAS WITH THE CONSENT OF HER 
HUSBAND’. Very naive, too, is the regulation about the disposition of 
property. If they both have the same amount, the husband and 
(the first or main) wife dispose of it jointly. If the husband has 
everything and the wife nothing, the husband disposes. Has the 

a Regarding - > disparaging form of ‘Prussian’ - ¢ to the Brunswick Committee of 
the Social-Democratic Workers’ Party - 4 Ch. Lever, Harry Lorrequer. See this volume, 
p. 507.-¢ A. Humbert, Le Plébiscite de boquillon. - See this volume, p. 507. - 
& Ibid. - h ‘Die Tiefsee-Untersuchungen’, Kélnische Zeitung, No. 122, 3 May 1870. 

wife all and the husband nothing, then ‘the wife takes the position 
of the husband, and the husband that of the wife’. Yet still more 
civilised than the modern English laws. 

The legal position of hommes entretenus* is also defined. 

Best greetings. 

Your 
F. E. 

Don’t talk about grey hairs. They are growing thickly enough in 
my beard, but the corresponding dignitas simply won’t appear.