Manchester, 15 April 70

Dear Mohr,

Enclosed: Borkheim, returned. The good Wilhelm did not imagine that his boastings about you would be communicated to you verbatim. He remains an ox his whole life long. The sheets go back to you Sunday evening. I shall try to see Gumpert tomorrow, but since he himself has been suffering from nerves for some time owing to “overwork” (of what kind?), it is possible that he is away during the holidays. Meanwhile I would suggest that you try taking some long walks for several days running – 3 to 4 hours at a stretch – and weather permitting never less than 1–2 hours daily, and then once or twice a week at least such a long walk. I can no longer work properly now until I have walked for an hour or longer, it works quite splendidly and will certainly also get your liver somewhat into working order again. Otherwise I am entirely of Kugelmann’s opinion.

The little Fränkel is a proper little Jew. He learned in Paris “la formule” and delivers good wares. Delightful that he conceives the frais généraux – including wear and tear of machinery, lubricants, coal (unless this is counted as raw material), ground-rent, etc. – as part of the surplus-value.

Bogs are simply peat bogs or swamps, which occur in two main types of locality: 1) on the plain, in basins (old lake beds) or depressions whose outflow has become choked up; 2) on heights with a flat or gently undulating crown, as a result of deforestation, where moss, grass, heather, etc. become matted and the water runs off more slowly than it falls as rain on average. Of the morasses of the plain, some may even be traversed by a large river which does not, however, drain them (so at several points on the Shannon, the Donaumoos in Bavaria, etc.). Very common also are such bogs which are the spring reservoirs of rivers (the Bog of Allen, from which in its original, now very reduced size, the Boyne, the Barrow, various tributaries of these two and of the Shannon flowed off). Chat Moss between Liverpool and Manchester, which you know, is, as Wakefield also confirms, a regular Irish pattern bog. It lies at least 30–40 feet above the Mersey and the Irwell, which flow round it in a semicircle, so that drainage would be very easy, and notwithstanding only about ⅓ has been done, and they have been at it since 1800. This is due to the landlords; such a thing can of course only be drained systematically and by compulsion. In Holland you also have them – peat bogs are everywhere alike throughout Europe. The Irish now call the lowland bog red bog and the mountain bog black bog. The seepage of water can even on the slopes – even very steep ones, 30–40 degrees – produce similar marshy spots which in time produce peat. On a steep slope it is of course only thin, on a shallower one it can become thicker and thicker. Thickest, naturally, on the flat crowns.

Townlands are the lowest administrative divisions in Ireland, where the old Irish clan divisions are everywhere taken as a basis, and in the north and west are mostly still preserved unchanged. The counties represent the local principalities (Donegal the realm of the O’Donnell, who again had others, e.g. the Mac Swine and his people, under him; Tyrone that of the O’Neill; Fermanagh that of the Maguire, etc.). The baronies represent the individual clans, and within these the ballybetaghs (as Davies writes) or, translated into English, townlands, the individual village marks held in common by the inhabitants. These have, for example, in Ulster been retained entirely within the old boundaries, in other parts more or less. The parish, the poor law union and other English special divisions were subsequently interposed between barony and townland.

Your conclusions from the parliamentary reports also tally with my results. Only it must not be forgotten that the process of clearing of 40/- freeholders finally runs concurrently with the clearing of labourers since 1846 at the beginning, and, indeed, because until 1829, in order to make freeholders, leases for 21 or 31 years & a life (where not longer) had to be granted, because a man became a freeholder only if he could not be evicted during his lifetime. These leases almost never excluded subdividing. These leases were partly still in force in 1846, or their consequences, i.e., the peasants, still on the estate. Ditto on the land then in the hands of middlemen (who mostly had leases of 64 years and three lives, or even 99 years), which frequently did not fall in until between 1846 and ’60. So that these processes run into each other, or the Irish landlord did not, or rarely, come to a clear understanding that it was specifically the labourers, more than other customary small tenants, who were to be expelled.

In substance it comes to the same thing in England as in Ireland: the land must be cultivated by labourers who live in other poor law unions, so that the landlord and his farmers remain free from the poor rate. This is also expressed by Senior | or rather his brother Edward, Poor Law Commissioner in Ireland: The great instrument which is clearing Ireland, is the Poor Law: The land sold since the Encumbered Estates Court amounts, according to my notes, to as much as ⅕ of the whole; the purchasers are in fact largely usurers, speculators, etc., mostly Irish Catholics. Partly also graziers who have grown rich. Nevertheless there are still in Ireland only about 8–9,000 landowners.

What do you say to the discomfiture of the whole European bourgeoisie, which swore by the empire libéral and had lately awarded laurels to Louis Bonaparte for his sincere transition to constitutionalism. And now it comes to light that he means the thing sincerely enough to expressly reserve to himself, for the moment convenient to him, the right of the coup d’état, vulgo plebiscite. He is not to be reproached a second time for overthrowing the constitution. Also a commentary on the “gouvernement direct par le peuple” which the Swiss are now introducing and the French most emphatically do not want. What is the Swiss term for plebiscite, veto or referendum? The question should be put to Wilhelm. Ad vocem Wilhelm – have you seen the famous advertisement in No. 27 of the *Volksstaat*: Who has borrowed “Kolb’s Statistik” from me? W. Liebknecht. Not only does he lose everything, he must also publicly announce it. *Zukunft* – very fine. The asses!

Best greetings,
Your F. E.