[London, 20 July 1852] 

With a difference of at most 10 votes in favour of either 
Whigs or Tories, the elections here will produce the same old 
Parliament. The cercle vicieux is complete. The same old 

4 virtuous - > in other respects a very good republican (an allusion to ceur du 
roi—king’s heart) - © E. Coeurderoy, O. Vauthier, La Barriére du Combat qui vient de 
se livrer entre les citoyens Mazzini, Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc, Etienne Cabet, Pierre 
Leroux, Martin Nadaud, Mallarmet, A. Bianchi (de Lille) et autres hercules du 
nord.- 4 E. Cceurderoy, De la révolution dans UVhomme et dans la société, - 
© P. J. Proudhon, La révolution sociale démontrée par le coup d’état du 2 décembre. - 
f An allusion to M. Stirner’s Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum. - 8 vicious circle 

constituents produce the same old Parliament. In that Parliament 
what have hitherto been the ruling parties are rotting from within, 
mutually offsetting and paralysing each other, so that they are 
compelled to appeal yet again to their constituents and so on, ad 
infinitum, until the circle is broken from without by the pressure 
of the masses, and that may soon be the case. At no previous 
election has the conflict between the real majority and the official 
majority of voters created by the electoral privileges been so 
glaringly in evidence. You should know that at every English 
election voting is done 1. by a show or Hanps when the whole 
population votes, and 2. by a pou, the decisive one, in which only 
the enfranchised vote. Those nominate by the show or Hanps do not 
include a single Member of Parliament, while those returned by 
the rou (i.e. really erecrep), do not include anyone nominated by 
the sow or Hanns. Take Halifax, for example, where Wood, the 
Whig Minister (Finance) was opposing E. Jones. At the stow or 
Hanps, Wood was hissed. Jones received 14,000 votes and was 
carried in triumph through the town. At the rot, Wood was 
elected while Jones received only 36 votes. 

There is little new to report about émigré affairs. But for a few 
louts, Willich stands more and more isolated, no one believing in 
his probity any longer. As I have told you, Reichenbach, though 
he resigned from the committee long ago, refuses to hand out a 
penny from the loan until a definitive committee has been formed. 
In his eyes, Willich and Kinkel are as unacceptable as the handful 
of blackguards who elected them. Reichenbach est un honnéte 
bourgeois, qui prend sa responsabilité au sérieux.” 

The French emigration has split into 3 camps: 1. Revolution 
(Ledru). 2. Delegation (the more progressive). 3. 1,500 opponents 
of both, the plebs or, as the aristocrats used to call them, the 
‘populean’. A certain Coeurderoy (d’ailleurs trés bon républicain)” has 
published a pamphlet against Mazzini-Ledru and Cabet-Blanc and 
is shortly to bring out something else. You will receive both when 
they appear. 

Yesterday a letter from Cologne, from which the following‘: 

‘Latterly they have been visiting various places in an attempt to find 
correspondence from you which, they are convinced, was to be conveyed through 
the agency of these persons to democrats in the Rhineland. Your friends are at last 
to be brought before the Court of Assizes. The bill of indictment, a most 
compendious work, has been drawn up, the date for the public hearing has been 
fixed for the 28th of this month, and the usual preliminaries are under way. As I 

4 is an honest bourgeois who takes his responsibility seriously - © in other respects 
a very good republican (an allusion to cwur du roi—king’s heart) - © Marx quotes 
here Bermbach’s letter of 9 July 1852 (see also this volume, pp. 134-35). 

understand the case they are, legally speaking, in an exceptionally good position but, 
as you will know, before a jury the moral standpoint is all important, and in this 
respect there can be no denying the danger for some of the accused. For the 
principal defendants, Réser, Burgers, Nothjung and Reiff, have given away far too 
much: they have admitted a connection with specific tendencies over a definite 
period; have talked of the enrolment of new members attended by certain 
formalities and pledges, and other such things, which in themselves, however, do 
not constitute a crime, but may, depending on circumstances, have an adverse 
effect on the jurymen, most of whom belong to the peasantry, particularly when 
there is such evident lack of respect for God and landed /property. Grave 
difficulties will also arise in connection with the defence; the advocates know 
nothing about such matters, most are hostile on principle and dread the thought of 
the ten-day sitting fixed for the case. It should not be forgotten that, on the 
occasion of the Assizes, proceedings will be taken in contumaciam against 
F. Freiligrath, at present in London. So Freiligrath will shortly be able to parade 
round London as a German poet who has been beheaded in effigy.— 

‘P.S. I have just read the bill of indictment which contains no less than 65-70 
pages. If they’re convicted, these people have only their own statements to blame. I 
doubt there can be any more consummate jackasses than these working men: Reiff 
made statements that were almost regular denunciations, and various others 
behaved no less ineptly. Small wonder that the fellows were so much harassed; the 
longer they have been held in solitary confinement, the more satisfactory 
statements they made. That aside, facts don’t come into it.’ 

Voila our Straubingers,”' it’s tough that world history should 
have to be made with people such as these...