{London,] 18 November [1861] 

Dear Engels, 

Iterum Crispinus!? 

Well, this is how matters now stand. 

On 9 November, I drew £16 on the Tribune for the 8 articles 
then sent. Out of this £16, I paid £3 apiece on account to butcher, 
baker, TEAGROCER, OILMAN, MILKMAN, and greengrocer. I spent 10/- on 
coal, which will all be gone by tomorrow. Your £5 went for the 
most part on the repayment of small cash loans. So, I’m broke, 
and there are further debts to be paid—the Lanptorp, school fees, 
the cobbler, and essential purchases for the family against the 
winter. I write for the Presse almost every day. With the Presse and 
the Tribune combined I might be able to make suirr. But in view 
of the constantly reaccumulating deficit (not a. milliard, admitted- 
ly ***) and a whole year’s loss of income this really can’t be done. 

Now there has been yet another disaster. 

As you know, I advanced Petsch & Co. £25 for the printing of 
Vogt, it being agreed that this was to be repaid out of the sate of 
copies, before any other deductions. Moreover, they owe me a few 
pounds for Hinter den Coulissen,” the Communist Trial’ and the 
18th Brumaire, etc.?%” 

On the other hand, I obtained newspapers and books from the 
fellows to the value of £10 9/-, if only to be in possession of some 
security. 

Koller (an associé*) has now had.a row with Petsch, who is not in 
the business at present. There’s a lawsuit pending between the two 
over the firm’s liquidation. 

The rascally Koller, whom I pressed about my claim, wrote 
instead advising me of his suit in the county-court’ regarding the 
£10 9/-. I went to see Zimmermann. He told me that my suit 

a Ecce iterum Crispinus (Behold, this Crispinus again). Juvenal, Satirae, IV, 1 
(figuratively: the same again). - > [G. Lommel,] Hinter den Coulissen. Historisch- 
politische Bilder aus der Newzeit, 1. Theil. Vom Oktober 1847 bis Mai 1848. - © K. Marx, 
Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne. - 4 K. Marx, The Eighteenth 
Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. - © partner 

would cost me about £30-£60 in a superior court, and that it would 
be better if I established my claim in the form of a counter-claim 
in the county-court, to which I had been summoned by Koller. Nor 
does he himself practise in the county-courts. So, to this end, I shall 
have to see an English souicrror before the week is out (and as soon 
as possible), which I can’t do without casu. 

If I were quit of this wretched situation and did not see my family 
oppressed by iseraste adversities, how overjoyed [I would 
be at the fiasco of the Decembrist financial system, so long and so 
frequently prognosticated by me in the Tribune. 

So William the Handsome or handsome William has done some 
plain speaking in Silesia: ‘If you elect democrats, we shall be 
ruined.’ ‘Soldiers are the only answer to democrats.’ ** 

Salut. 

Your 
K. M.