ENGELS TO EMIL BLANK” 

Cologne, 24 May 1848 
14, Héhle 

Dear Emil, 

I arrived here in Cologne last Saturday.” The Rheinische Zeitung* 
will be appearing on | June. But if we are not at once to come up 
against obstacles, some preliminary arrangements must be made in 
London, and we are taking the liberty of entrusting these to you 
since there’s nobody else there. 

1. Arrange at any newsman's for a subscription to The Telegraph 
(pay paper) and The Economist, weekly paper, from the time this letter 
arrives until 1 July. The newsman, whose address you can give us to 
save being bothered again later on, should include both papers in 
one wrapper or paper band—in the way papers are customarily 
sent—and dispatch them daily, addressed to Mr W. Clouth, St 
Agatha, 12, Cologne, via Ostend.” 

2. Please forward the enclosed letters. 

3. Pay the cost of the subscription to the two papers, the postage of 
this letter, etc., etc, and charge them at once to the dispatch 

a the Communist League - > 20 May - © Neue Rheinische Zeitung 

department of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, St Agatha, 12, Cologne, 
stating to whom the sum is to be sent, and it will be done at 
once. 

The necessary capital for the newspaper has been raised. 
Everything is going well, all that remains is the question of the 
papers, and then we can start. We are already getting The Times 
and, for the first month, we need no other English papers than 
the two above-mentioned. Should you ever happen upon some- 
thing worthy of note in another paper, we should be grateful if 
you would send it to us. Any expense will, of course, immediately 
be refunded. Papers containing detailed information on trade, the 
state of business, etc., etc., are also desirable. Write some time and 
let me know what papers are now to be had there, so that we 
know how we stand. 

I didn’t, of course, see Marie,* as I had to leave before she 
arrived. But Ill be going over there some time soon, when things 
here are really under way. Barmen, by the way, is more boring 
than ever and is filled with a general hatred for what little 
freedom they have. The jackasses believe that the world exists 
solely to enable them to make tidy profits and, since these are now 
at a low ebb, they are screeching gruesomely. If they want 
freedom they must pay for it, as the French and English have had 
to do; but these people think they ought to have everything for 
nothing. Here things are looking up a little, if not very much. The 
Prussians are still the same as ever, the Poles are being branded 
with lunar caustic and, at the moment of writing, Mainz is 
being bombarded by the Prussians because the Civic Guard arrested a 
few drunken and rampaging soldiers”*°—the sovereign National 
Assembly in Frankfurt hears the firing and doesn’t seem to take 
any notice.”' In Berlin Camphausen is taking it easy, while 
reaction, the rule of officials and aristocrats grows daily more 
insolent, irritates the people, the people revolt and Camphausen’s 
spinelessness and cowardice lead us straight towards fresh 
revolutions. That is Germany as it now is! Adieu. 

Your 
F. E.