London, 8 October 1853 
28 Dean Street, Soho 

Dear Engels, 

D’abord* I must ask you—if you can—to send by return at Jeast 
a minimum of money. Two weeks ago Spielmann finally paid up 
after deducting nearly £2. In the meantime, of course, debts had 
mounted up so much, so many of our absolute essentials had 
found their way to the pawnbroker’s and the family had grown so 
shabby, that for the past 10 days there hasn’t been a sou in the 
house. I now possess proof that I have been cheated by 
Spielmann, but a quoi bon’? At my request the firm in New York 
returned me the bill together with a letter from which it emerges 
that payment was made as early as 22 July, whereas I didn’t receive 
the money until the end of September. I now have a further £24 
to draw. (Since Pieper’s incarceration I have sent in 6 articles, 
among them a fulminating acte d’accusation’ of Palmerston, in 
which I trace his career from 1808 to 1832.° I shall hardly be able 
to deliver the sequel by Tuesday, since there are a great many 
Blue Books and Hansards to be consulted and Friday and today 
were utterly wasted in traipsing around after money. I wrote 
Friday's article’ during the night, dictated it to my wife from 7 to 
11 in the morning, then took Shanks’s pony to the City.) 
Freiligrath has promised—and will do everything he can to that 
end, i.e. endorse it himself, etc.—to discount the bill for me with 
Bischoffsheim, but is unable to arrange the matter for another 8 
to 10 days. Such is the casus belli. I shall have to see how I can get 
through the next few days. Credit is not available for food 
(excepting hot drinks and appurtenances). On top of that there'll 

a First - > what’s the use? - © indictment - 4 K. Marx, ‘Lord Palmerston’. First 
Article written on 4 October 1853 was published in the New-York Daily Tribune, 
No. 3902, 19 October 1853 as a leading article ‘I. Palmerston’. - © 7 October. 
K. Marx, ‘The War Question.— Financial Matters.—Strikes’. 

be Pieper who will probably come out of hospital tomorrow — peut- 
étre As soon as I got my money I sent him £3, but the jackass 
entrusted it to Liebknecht for safekeeping and will now find 
there’s not a farthing left. 

Of the many pleasures I have experienced during my years 
here, the greatest have consistently been provided by so-called 
party friends—red Wolff,” Lupus, Dronke, etc. Today Freiligrath 
told me that Franz Joseph Daniels is in London and had been to 
see him with red Wolff. He, Daniels, declared he wouldn’t come to 
see me because my association with Bangya had brought about his 
brother’s arrest which would not otherwise have occurred. 
Bangya first called on me in February 1852, and Daniels was 
locked up in May 1851! A very retrospective effect, then. All this 
infamous gossip (the reward for my trouble and loss of time, and 
such-like agreeable consequences of the trial) is, of course, 
eagerly seized upon as an excuse for their own lamentable 
behaviour towards me and their cowardly retreat. However this 
vile business is attributable solely to the bandying about of 
ill-natured remarks by Messrs Dronke and W. Wolff who have 
kept for themselves the easier part, ie. cancan,° being otherwise 
perfectly content to leave the work to me. 

If my life was an easy, or at least a carefree one, I wouldn't, of 
course, give a fig for these scurrilities. But when, year after year, 
the bourgeois mire is laced with this and similar kinds of mire, c’est 
un peu fort.’ I propose at the next opportunity to declare publicly 
that I have nothing whatever to do with any party. I no longer feel 
inclined to allow myself to be insulted by any old party jackass on 
so-called party grounds. 

You can see how necessary it is to get my pamphlet into 
Germany. Since you can’t do it yourself, let me have Strohn’s 
address and I will take the matter up with him. 

I would also much like to hear at last what Mr Dronke has to 
say about the book." As for Mr Lupus, he apparently wishes to 
make up for his servility towards his bourgeois patrons by being 
abominably insolent towards myself. I can assure him that he has 
by no means settled this matter by boasting to Imandt that, on the 
pretext of coming to say good-bye, he had vented his philistine 
spleen on me. 

4 perhaps - > Ferdinand - © Roland Daniels - 4 Cologne communist trial - © ma- 
licious gossip - f it’s a bit too much -& K. Marx, Revelations Concerning the 
Communist Trial in Cologne. - h See this volume, p. 364. 

Enclosed a letter from Cluss. In his essay against the Neu- 
England-Zettung* he has—aptly as I think—pieced together sundry 
passages from my letters about Carey, etc.“ 

Your 
K. M.