IN HOTTINGEN-ZURICH 

London, 12 March” 1886 

Dear Mr Schliiter, 

If I am to send you a speedy reply, I shall have to be brief. 
1) The man with the money has not yet turned up. 
2) We have Lexis‘ here. Thanks for the hint. 

@ William Swan Sonnenschein -’ May in the original. - ° W. Lexis, ‘Die Marx’sche 
Kapitaltheorie’, Jahrbiicher für Nationalékonomie und Statistik, Vol. 11, Jena, 1885. 

3) Origin. * This business of the ‘2nd edition’ has its dubious aspects, 
but when I consider that the two markets are completely different 
and that the ‘Ist edition’ is therefore unlikely to get in the way of the 
‘2nd’, it’s unlikely to do much harm. °°* Admittedly I should have 
been happier had Dietz consulted us first. He has behaved very arbit- 
rarily in the past over other matters. This time it was quite unneces- 
sary; he could, e.g., easily have informed me about the matter 
through Kautsky. But he likes fazts accomplis and I shall get someone 
to tell him as much. 

4) Reports of the International. °°* I was in Manchester at the 
time and can’t really remember the details. ‘The General Council did, 
at any rate, send a messace to all the congresses, but Marx’s papers 
and pamphlets are all of them still in the unsorted state they were 
in when I lugged them over here and it will take about 6 weeks 
to put them in order. However I’ve asked Kautsky to make in- 
quiries from Lessner; I should be very surprised if he hasn’t collected 
everything. 

5) Stephens’ Speech. °°’ Yes, the thing is by Weerth. 

As to the introduction, I shall be glad to go through your ms. But 
here too there are few sources and the bourgeois have been responsi- 
ble for some serious falsification. Last year Harney scoured the whole 
of Yorkshire, Lancashire and London for one copy of The Northern 
Star, the paper which he had edited and which had had a circulation 
of 100,000 copies. In vain. Evanescence — such is the curse that af- 
flicts all proletarian literature not included in official literature. Thus 
Owen’s works are nowhere to be had and the British Museum would 
pay a great deal of money for a complete collection. A genuine ac- 
count will therefore be difficult. The Brentanos and Co. know nothing. 
The Charter !°! was drawn up in 1835, not 1838, and O’Connel” was 
also involved if I’m not mistaken. What Brentano says about the peti- 
tion is utter nonsense‘; after 10 April the bourgeois of both parties 
stuck together and in such a case lies are always disseminated, it 
being impossible to refute them either in Parliament or in the 
press. Even if a House of Commons Committee did scrutinise the 
petition (which I very much doubt), it would have been quite in- 
capable of distinguishing the genuine from the bogus. 5>° But in the 
spring of 1848, no one was able to take much interest in such dirty 
@ F. Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.- O’Connell in 

the original.-° L. Brentano, ‘Die englische Chartistenbewegung’, Preufische Jahr- 
biicher, Nos. 5, 6, Berlin, 1874. 

247, Engels to Laura Lafargue. 15-16 March 1886 423 

goings-on; there were other things to do. Besides, we weren’t in 
England. 
With kindest regards, 

Yours, 
F. Engels