Manchester, 20 April 1854 

Dear Marx, 

It’s all off with The Daily News” and, in fact, I have grounds 
for assuming that, by his indiscretion, Monsieur Pieper has played 
me a dirty trick which I shall not forget in a hurry. Everything was 
ALL RIGHT, Only the fee to be settled, my article” already set up in 
printi—! have the proof copy in my pocket. As long ago as a week 
last Wednesday I wrote to the fellows saying I would accept their 

4 Edgar von Westphalen - > F. Engels, ‘The Russian Army’. 

usual terms, and today the answer finally arrives saying that the 
articles are TOO proresstonaL, that, much as they would like to, they 
cannot use them and concluding very politely with an offer of two 
guineas for my tTrousie and the good advice that I should 
approach a uuirary paper. Needless to say, I shall accept neither. 

I can think of only one explanation for this strange behaviour: 
Pieper who, to judge by a foolish letter he wrote me a week ago,”"” 
knew about the thing, must have been talking big about it and 
thus, by the well-known telegraphic medium of émigré gossip, the 
story came to the ears of Kinkel or some other wretched German 
blighter acquainted with The Daily News and then, of course, 
nothing was easier than to represent Engels, the murrary MAN, as no 
more than a former one-year volunteer, a communist and a clerk 
by trade, thus putting a stop to everything. The politeness of the 
refus* was not for my benefit, of course, but Watts’s. The way the 
letter is written does not preclude my applying again, but only to 
be relegated to the PENNY-a-LINERS, 

I should be greatly obliged if you could find out who let the cat 
out of the bag; needless to say, Mr Schimmelpfennig’s eulogies” 
are a poor set-orr for this échec.“ 

On top of that, the shilly-shallying of the Daily News chaps has 
meant that in the meantime some of my sources here have become 
known through the German press—the Moltke,‘ which I have 
found enormously helpful, is now scarcely any good to me at all 
and in a fortnight all the rest will have gone the same way, and I 
wouldn’t dream of risking another £5 on the thing on speculation. 

I feel very much inclined to finish the articles on Russian 
military power and send them to The Times. If they published 
them, what an ass The Daily News would Jook! But a second échec 
would have its drawbacks, for then I should look a complete ass. 
That’s why its so damnable my not being in London, when 
everything would be perfectly simple. What do you think? Write at 
once and let me know.* 

About the other things in a 7-day or two. I can’t let you have the 
article on the Russian bulletin’ before the next sailing; it needs to 
be closely studied and compared with the map, otherwise one risks 
making an ass of oneself here as well. 

If only you could screw more money out of the Tribune, ’'d turn 
my back on the whole, rotten English press, where blackguardly 
German interlopers persuade stupid editors to reject the best 
a refusal - > See this volume, p. 433. - © failure -¢ H. von Moltke, Der russisch- 

türkische Feldzug in der europdischen Türkei 1828 und 1829. -¢ See this volume, 
pp. 438-39. -‘ ibid., p. 433. 

articles, and I’d send you one or two Tribune articles every week. 
But to wear our fingers to the bone writing for £200, c’est trop 
fort* 

Write at once and tell me what you think of this rotten business; 
the whole affair has put me terribly out of temper. Of all the band 
there’s nobody we can rely on except each other. 

Steffen and Dronke were here at Easter; I didn’t at all care for 
Dronke who has acquired a revolting habit of bragging hike a 
commis-voyageur.” The fellow’s becoming a regular loafer. 

Your 
F. E.