MARX TO ADOLF CLUSS*” 

[London, 17 April 1853] 

... Today I have received the first 5 numbers* from New York, 
whether from Weydemeyer or from Kellner I do not know. With 
most of them I was already familiar through you. This is at least a 
decent paper —a rare thing in America—and a working man’s 
paper. However, I cannot say I very much care for the chief 
editor’s affected effusions concerning ‘questions personnelles’ which 
are at one and the same time party questions, or for his 
pseudo-naive gentility and biblical portentousness. But you have to 
take this newspaper as it comes. What I liked best of all was 
Weydemeyer’s introduction to his ‘Okonomische Skizzen’. Good 
stuff that. I have approached our people here; Dronke and Pieper 
have, I think, already sent something. I shall speak to Jones. On 
the whole it is difficult to get contributions. I myself have too 
much to do. The others unfortunately are still somewhat put off 
by their earlier experiences. Lupus is in a wretched state. Eccarius 
has to work away at his tailoring from 5 in the morning until 8 at 
night and is in a dangerously hectic condition. Engels, when not 
stuck in the office, is completely taken up with his studies, and 
probably he too has not yet got over the wrongs he thinks he has 
suffered at the hands of the American Press. Our party is, alas, 
very pauvre.” J shall also approach ex-lieutenant Steffen, ex-witness 
for the defence at the Cologne trial, presently a schoolmaster in 
the vicinity of London. He has more spare time than anyone else 
and is very capable. 

Pieper has still not finished the articles you want, which explains 
why you haven’t yet had them.*” 

As for the Hirsch affair,© a statement? immediately went off to 
Engels via Engels, which, etc., etc. I’ve known for 6 months or 
more that there was something fishy about Bangya. I didn’t break 
with the fellow until, like the jackass he is, he had let me find out 
all about his connections, handed over all documents that put me 

a of Die Reform - >» poor - © See this volume, pp. 301-02. - d K. Marx, ‘Hirsch’s 
Confessions’. 

in the right and him in the wrong, and generally placed himself at 
my mercy. I threw him out months ago at Szemere’s. 

My suspicions of Willich have only been confirmed by his latest 
step. D’abord, I know that he and Kinkel paid and continue to pay 
Hirsch out of revolutionary funds! Then, at the Cologne trial, 
soon after it began, he boasted to Fleury (who in turn passed it on 
to Imandt) that he had in his possession a letter of mine to Bangya 
dated Manchester. I challenged Bangya about this at the time. He 
said he was willing to be confronted with Fleury. On being 
informed of this by Imandt at my behest, Fleury retracted. Thus 
at that time Willich was illicitly consorting with Hirsch. He knew 
that Hirsch was illicitly consorting with Greif and that his friend 
Fleury was a spy. It was through these fellows that he got hold of 
my letter. The ‘gallant worthy—for whom, en passant, free meat 
and drink is le dernier but‘—wanted to set a trap for me, and to 
that end became embroiled in intrigues with mouchards4 

True, he sent Hirsch to Cologne. True, I heard later that 
Hirsch was in Cologne. But why did he send Hirsch to Cologne, 
and when did he send him there? Firstly, when it was already too 
late. 2. When the police in Cologne had themselves denounced his 
friend Fleury. 3. When he himself, having become suspect, wished 
to rehabilitate himself as a ‘magnanimous worthy’ by means of this 
theatrical coup. This was Hirsch’s own account of the affair on his 
return... 

Reichenbach and family, ‘clever’ Lieutenant Schimmelpfennig 
complete with wife and Briningk legacy of £1,000, and lastly, the 
artist Schmolze, set sail today for America. Bon voyage! But 
Reichenbach’s flight has deprived poor Lupus of the last of his 
lessons. It’s most unfortunate for him. He’s no Kinkel. Nor does 
he know how to lick the boots of the bourgeois like the future 
‘President of the German Republic’ and his ‘consort’,© both of 
them consummate sycophants, humbugs and _ parasites. The 
amiable Gottfried has so far succeeded in ingratiating himself that 
he has been accorded the use of one of London University’s 
lecture rooms to repeat before a London audience his old series of 
lectures on Christian art in the Middle Ages. He is giving them 
free and gratis in the hope that he will be able to worm his way 
into the post of Professor of Aesthetics at London University. He 
delivers them in azominaste English, reading from a manuscript. 
Though welcomed with applause at the beginning of the series, he 

4 In the first place - > in passing - © the ultimate aim - 4 police spies - © Johanna 
Kinkel 

subsequently proved such a complete failure that not even the 
organised claque of Jewish aesthetics-mongers could save him. 
Edgar Bauer, who was present—Kinkel gave his first lecture last 
Tuesday—told me all about it. It seems to have been a truly 
nauseating and wretched performance.