[Manchester,] Wednesday, 15 October 1851 

Dear Marx, 

Herewith Post Orrice Orpver for two pounds. Particuars as before. 
The business with Gohringer is a great nuisance. You'll have to 
pay; the centiemen of the County Courr make short work of it, and 
the handwriting is there. If I were you, I’d raise the money along 
with the cost of the summons as soon as possible, and send it to the 
fellow. Il n’y a rien a faire, and to go to court and be sentenced 
only increases the costs and isn’t exactly pleasant. What is the total 
amount, and how much: can you raise? Let me have as exact a 
figure as possible and IJ shall certainly do everything in my power 
to keep the proxers away from your door, short though I myself 
am just now. 

The business with Schramm is not very pleasant’ and it would 
have been better had we been kept out of this beastly mess 
altogether. That the minutes concerning those edifying squabbles 
over Bauer’s and Pfander’s trust funds*** should be in the hands 
of these gentlemen is far from pleasant, and Schramm deserves to 
have his backside kicked for carting such things around with him. 
At any rate, it serves him right if, as a result, he’s locked up for a 
time and gets six months for using a false passport. 

As for Haupt, I shall not regard him as a spy until I have the 
actual proof before my eyes. The fellow may have done some 
stupid things while in clink and there’s admittedly something fishy 
about the business with Daniels, who is said to have been arrested 
on the strength of his denunciation. But all this journeymen’s 
club chatter from Windmill Street is the more fatuous for 
coinciding with the story of the forcing of Dietz’s desk. Doubtless 
it was actually from Hamburg that Haupt broke into the 
cockroach’s desk! And then, why doesn’t the precious Dietz 
complain to the English police? It would, by the way, be a very 
good idea if Haupt could be induced to make a statement about 
the matter. If you send Weerth a letter for him, I would imagine 
that Weerth would be bound to find some opportunity of handing 

4 There's nothing you can do - > See this volume, p. 473. 

it to him personally within the fortnight and, if needs be, could 
even call on him at the office. A merchant can always be found. 

The affair of Blind and spouse* is truly inimitable. To shed 
tears and push off because Monsieur Pieper maligned Feuerbach, 
cest fort? 

When you use the word ‘married’ of red Wolff, is it in the 
English, respectably bourgeois sense? I’m inclined to believe this, 
since you underline it. That would really beat everything hollow. 
M. Wolff bon époux, peut-étre méme bon pére de famille!* 

I think you’d be well-advised to fob Ewerbeck off with a few 
meagre notes and keep him in tolerably good humour; no 
purpose would be served by the fellow’s spreading something 
altogether too idiotic about us in France. By the way, the tenacity 
this fellow evinces in his endeavours to become a great man is 
unbelievable considering that it actually gets the better of his 
. avarice; for this new piece of ‘immortality’ is undoubtedly again 
being paid for out of his own pocket, with a sale of 50 copies in 
prospect. 

I'd like to hear more about Sasonow should you hear from him. 
This episode is piquant and Mr Sasonow is becoming extremely 
suspect. 

I am at present engaged in making what summaries I need 
from the Proudhon. Wait until the end of this week, and it’ll be 
returned to you, with my comments.’ Once again the fellow’s 
calculations are capital. Wherever there’s a figure there’s a howler. 

What course the crisis will take here cannot be foreseen. 
Nothing was done last week because of the Queen. Not much this 
week either. But the market has a pownwarp TENDENcy, with raw 
material prices still firm. Both will fall considerably within a few 
weeks and probably, to go by current prospects, the industrial 
product relatively further than the raw material; hence the 
spinners, weavers and printers will have to work on lower margins. 
That in itself is suspect enough. But the American market 
threatens to expire, the reports from Germany are not too 
favourable and, if markets continue moribund, we might see the 
beginning of the end in a few weeks’ time. In America it’s hard to 
say whether pressure and bankruptcies (debts of 16 million dollars 
in all) really are the beginning, or are merely straws in the wind: 
Here, at all events, there are already some very significant straws. 

a Cohen - > is preposterous - ¢ Ferdinand Wolff - 4 a good husband, perhaps even 
a good pater familias! - ¢ H. Ewerbeck, L’Allemagne et les Allemands. - § F. Engels, 
‘Critical Review of Proudhon’s Book Idée générale de la Révolution au XIX¢ siécle’. - 8 In 
mid-October 1851 Queen Victoria visited Manchester.