MARX TO ENGELS” 

. [London,] 10 May 1861 

Dear Frederick, 
Herewith d’abord' a photograph. Lupus and Gumpert shall each 
have ditto as soon as I have got some more prints. I had the thing 

a [J. K.] Rodbertus, Sociale Briefe an von Kirchmann. Dritter Brief..., Berlin, 
1851. -> W. Roscher, System der Volkswirthschaft. Band I: Die Grundlagen der 
Nationalékonomie..., Stuttgart and Augsburg, 1858. - © False knowledge - 4 See this 
volume, p. 274. - © A monkey doesn’t laugh. - ‘ first 

11* 

done, partly for my cousin in Rotterdam,* partly in exchange for the 
photographs I had been given in Germany and Holland. Secondly, 
a cutting from a Düsseldorf paper about Herr Vogt. Lastly, I 
enclose a copy of the Free Press? which is admittedly somewhat 
out-of-date, since you and Lupus did not, perhaps, follow the 
parliamentary debate on the Afghanistan affair very closely. It. was 
the greatest check Pam had experienced since 1848.7” 

What you say about the plan for a newspaper in Berlin 
corresponds precisely to my own view and I had already, mutatis 
mutandis, intimated the main points to Lazarus." And—though I 
had already told him positively in Berlin that I would undertake 
nothing of the kind without you and Lupus—I had, nevertheless, 
positively pledged myself to lay the matter before you ‘seriously 
and objectively’, and thus salvavi animam meam.* 

Apropos Lassalle-Lazarus. In his magnum opus on Egypt,' 
Lepsius proved that the exodus of the Jews from Egypt was 
nothing other than the story Manetho relates of the expulsion 
from Egypt of ‘the leper folk’, with an Egyptian priest named 
Moses at their head. Lazarus the leper is thus the archetype of the 
Jew and of Lazarus-Lassalle. Save that in our Lazarus’s case, 
leprosy has gone to the brain. Originally, his disease was secondary 
syphilis that wasn’t properly cured. As a result, he developed 
caries in one of his legs, and something of this still remains, 
according to his doctor, Frerich (I don’t know how that famous 
professor spells it), in the form of neuralgia or something oF ‘THE SORT 
in one of his legs. To the detriment of his own physique, our 
Lazarus is now living as luxuriously as his counterpart, the rich 
man,” and it is this, I think, that is mainly preventing his recovery. 
He has acquired altogether too much refinement and would, for 
instance, regard going into a pub as an outrage. Curiously 
enough, he asked me at least four times whom. I meant by Jacob 
Wiesenriesler' in Vogt. However, considering his vanity, which has 
now grown truly ‘objective’, this was only usus naturae! We are all 
to be sent his new legal masterpiece (Dharma).””* 

While in Berlin I also went to see Friedrich KKöppen. I found 
him still very much as he always was. Only he’s grown stouter, and 
‘grizzled’. I went out on the spree with him twice and it was a real 

4 Jacques Philips - > ‘Mr Dunlop’s Motion for a Select Committee on the Affghan 
Papers’, The Free Press, Vol. IX, No. 4, 3 April 1861. -¢ with the necessary 
alterations - ¢ See this volume, pp. 281, 283-84. - © saved my soul. Cf. Ezekiel 3:19, 
21.-f R. Lepsius, Denkmäler aus Agypten und Athiopien, Bd. I-XII, Berlin, 
1849-59. - 8 Friedrich Theodor von Frenichs - * See Luke 16 : 19-31. -' Marx is 

referring to Lassalle. - i in accordance with his nature. 

treat for me. He made me a present of his two volume Buddha,* an 
important work. Amongst other things, he told me how those 
scoundrels, Zabel et cie, had gained possession of the National- 
Zeitung. That paper was originally founded in 1848, with a fully 
paid-up share capital (but with no proper contract, IN A LOOSE way). 
Migge, K6Köppen, and others, exerted themselves to that end. 
Rutenberg became editor-in-chief, with Zabel as his deputy, and, 
lastly, the Jew Wolff? as manager. The paper made rapid headway 
as a result of its pale-ale-swigging philistine moderation and its 
service to the parliamentary Left.” Rutenberg was elbowed out by 
his sociis‘ on the pretext, false or real, that he was adopting too 
conservative a line and was accepting gratifications from Han- 
semann. Zabel brought in a faiseur* who did his writing for him, 
while Zabel frequented sundry public houses where he conversed 
with pale-ale-swigging philistines and thus ensured the growth of 
the paper’s popularity. The coup d’état (Manteuffel’s)*” and the 
various arbitrary anti-press measures, the severity of which did not 
abate until the end of 1850, provided a welcome excuse not to 
convene the shareholders. Meanwhile, the paper, which, with 
the suppression of the revolutionary press and the rise of the 
Hinckeldey-Stieber régime, found itself for the first time in its 
true element, acquired stature in the eyes of the philistines. It 
became a going concern and, in asour 1852, some of the 
shareholders grew importunate and demanded a statement of 
accounts, a general meeting, etc. The most refractory were then 
taken on one side by Jew Wolff and divinity student Zabel. It was 
divulged to them in confidence that, if the paper were not to be 
ruined, dead silence must be religiously kept in respect of its 
finances, since it was, in fact, bankrupt. (In fact, the shares, 
originally 25 talers, were by then already worth 100.) So, on no 
account must it be flushed, d’une maniére ou d’une autre out of its 
shy financial retreat. As a special concession, however, an exception 
would be made in their (i.e., the most troublesome shareholders’) 
case and the amount they had invested would be returned to them 
in exchange for their shares. In this way, the most dangerous were 
indemnified. This farce was repeated on several occasions. The 
majority of those who were thus bought off, however, received — 
strictly in proportion to the passive resistance they put up—at the 
most 40, at the lowest 5%, of the sum they had originally invested. 

aC. F. Koeppen, Die Religion des Buddha und ihre Entstehung, Bd. 1-2, Berlin, 
1857-59. - > Bernhard Wolff - « partners - 4 factotum - © in one way, or another 

To this day, a considerable proportion of the liberal milksops have 
not received a farthing, nor are they any more capable of 
extracting a statement of accounts. They keep silent for fear of the 
Kreuz-Zeitung? Such is the escroquerie that has enabled Jew Wolff 
and divinity student Zabel to become leading dignitaries of 
liberalismus vulgaris, with ‘surplus money’ at their disposal. A pity I 
hadn’t heard this tale before! 

Rutenberg has been handed over by Manteuffel to Schwerin as 
an expressly guaranteed item of stock-in-trade. With his scissors he 
is now snipping the Staatszeitung to rights—a paper nobody reads 
any more. A type of London Gazette. Bruno,‘ who is said to have 
fared hellish badly, vainly offered his services to the present 
ministry—i.e., in the form of continued contributions to the 
semi-official Preussische Zeitung. He is now the principal con- 
tributor to Wagener’s (Kreuz-Zeitung) Staatslexikon. Besides, he’s a 
farmer at Rixdorf, or whatever the miserable hole is called. 

One day, I witnessed a session of the second chamber from the 
press gallery. I had similarly witnessed a session of the Prussian 
Agreers*"' in the summer of 1848. Quantum mutatum ab illis!? Not 
that they were Titans either—far from it! A cramped assembly 
room. Nothing much in the way of visitors’ galleries. The fellows 
sit on benches (as compared with the arm-chairs of the ‘Gentle- 
men’),°? an odd combination of government office and school- 
room. A Belgian Chamber is imposing by comparison. Simson or 
Samson, or whatever the president’s name is, avenges himself— 
with all the grotesque and brutal magisteriality of a ministerial 
huissier *°? —for the kicks dealt him by Manteuffel when dispens- 
ing discipline with his ass’s jawbones among the _philistines 
cowering below. In any other assembly this unspeakable species of 
servile insolence personified would already have had his ears 
boxed. In Berlin one is repelled, especially at the theatre, by the 
prevalence of uniforms (apropos, in the very first few days, la 
Hatzfeldt took me to a box close to that of ‘handsome William’ 
and company, in order to insult the royal family. Three hours of 
ballet. This was the only performance of the evening. Yet another 
aspect of Berlin), yet one cannot but rejoice when one espies, here 
and there among the crowd of kow-towing bureaucratic school- 
boys, some chap in uniform who at least holds his head erect and 
sits up straight. Vincke happened, to be speaking—indeed, he 
never lets a session go by without doing so. I had, in fact, flattered 

a Neue Preufische Zeitung -» piece of swindling -‘ Bruno Bauer - 4 How much 
they have changed! (Virgil, Aeneid, ii, paraphrased.) - © doorkeeper 

the fellow. Had I heard him speak before, the portrait would have 
turned out very differently. In an indifferent comedy, Die 
Journalisten, by Freytag which I saw in Berlin, one of the 
characters is a fat Hamburg philistine and wine mercuant named 
Piepenbrink. Vincke is the spit and image of this Piepenbrink. 
The most revolting Hamburg-Westphalian patois, a torrent of 
hastily gabbled words, not a sentence correctly constructed or 
complete. And this is the Mirabeau of Hasenheide!* The only 
' figures in this gathering of pygmies who at least look decent are 
Waldeck, on one side, and Wagener and Don Quixote von 
Blanckenburg,” on the other. 

Went to see Siebel in Elberfeld. Had supper with him in 
Barmen. Pretty, young wife, sings well, admires her Carl—found 
her not unpleasing. Siebel just the same as ever. Consorts mainly 
with a liberal journalist (formerly Münster correspondent to the 
Neue Rheinische Zeitung),° poets, musicians, and painters. The best 
among them, I thought, was Seel. Siebel took me to the 
‘California’ in Barmen, a boring bunch. They drank my health. I 
got Siebel to tell them I had lost my voice, and he replied on my 
behalf with a few boring jokes which, however, were in the right 
place. Siebel says that his father copies everything he does— 
writing verse and drinking, so that he’s said to be a block, off the 
young chip. 

In Cologne I called on Schneider II and Dr Klein. Just the same 
as ever—if anything, have gone even further. Spent a couple of 
hours tippling with them. In one pub saw, also incognito, 
Stuhlgang Konigswinter (Wolfgang Miller).4 Called on Mrs 
Daniels. Not that ninny and National Association man Birgers. 
But more about this later. I’ve indulged in so much chat that I 
haven’t yet touched on essentials. Some more anon. 

Totus tuus* 

K. M.