{London,] 6 May 1854 
28 Dean Street, Soho 

Dear Engels, 

Unfortunately your ‘pisparcu’* did not arrive yesterday until the 
post office had closed, and the .errer could not be sent to New 
York even against payment of the customary shilling. 

The Pole Miskowsky— vide the ‘Knight of the Noble’—has come 
to a very bad end. The poor devil had long been in the most 
wretched circumstances, had never succeeded in raising the 
wherewithal for the trip to Constantinople —as HE WAS NOT ONE OF THE 
‘MINIONS’ OF THE ‘Governor’“—and had thus sunk to being a lumpen- 
proletarian in Whitechapel to whom we in the West Enp From TIME TO 
TIME sent some small aid. A few days ago the pauvre diable,° 

@ See this volume, p. 422 - > Good-bye and farewell. - ¢ F. Engels, ‘News from the 
European Contest’. - ¢ Lajos Kossuth - © poor devil 

together with six other refugees, was burned alive in the wooden 
shack he occupied with them in Whitechapel.*” First you’re 
reduced to beggary, then you starve, and finally you’re burnt to 
death; what more can you expect in this ‘best of worlds’.* 

Since Wiss, Doctor of Universal Wisdom, had launched in the 
Republik der Arbeiter a Furious ONSLAUGHT On oUF ‘corrupt ideas’ and 
mindless ‘frivolity’,” I thought it fitting to obtain from Edgar 
Bauer, whom I see from time to time—a rendez-vous invariably 
followed by a hangover—some information on this lumen mundi, 
now a shareholder in Weitling’s stables of bliss. Briefly, this is what 
I learned there: 

Mr Wiss apparently arrived in Berlin shortly after your time.” 
He was a vain youth with a marked aversion for ‘positive’ 
knowledge, which is why he never succeeded in passing his 
medical examinations and threw himself passionately into the 
universal wisdom which was concentrated in Stehely’s.** Initially a 
Brunoist* and then a Stirnerian, he became a member of Edgar 
Bauer’s society of ‘The Free’,”°’ was much interested in the 
emancipation of women, and resolved to become ‘frivolous’. In 
pursuance of this aim he tumbled the landlady with whom he 
lodged—a midwife. The midwife then set to work on the 
‘frivolous’ one’s conscience, bemoaning the loss of her ‘Lesser 
Watiacuia’ which damage Wiss, le bonhomme,’ helped make good by 
cohabiting with her in ‘free’ marriage. Much though she esteemed 
Mr Wiss’ money-bag, the midwife thought no less highly of the 
‘natural bag of a certain working man, a lusty mechanic who 
lodged in the same house. Here again the great Wiss helped make 
good the damage by permitting the working man to work the 
machinery while reserving for himself the pleasure of ennobling 
the resulting product with the name of ‘Proudhon-Fourier Wiss’ 
and, whenever the name Proudhon was mentioned in the society 
of The Free, it was not the one in Paris they meant but the 
mechanic’s orrsprinc christened by Wiss. 

Since Mr Wiss spent a great deal of money, learned nothing, 
and extolled free marriage, his worthy papa ceased to honour his 
bills, after which he lived on minor literature ad la Meyen and 
loans made to him on his ‘espérances’‘ by philanthropists in Berlin. 
Came the revolution. Wiss became a popular orator, and one of 
the vice-chairmen of the democratic club, helped in by 

4 Voltaire, Candide. - > E. Wif, ‘Die elementaren Richtungen der Zeit’, Republik der 
Arbeiter, No. 15, 8 April 1854. The article was published in instalments from 
March to June 1854. - © light of the world - 4 supporter of Bruno Bauer - © the 
worthy fellow - ! expectations 

450 295, Engels to Marx. 9 May 1854 

Edgar Bauer. Next he became a contributor to the Reform but 
so dim was his light that even Ruge hid it under a bushel. Au bout 
du compte* Wiss hastily assumed an ‘ironical attitude’ to the 
revolution, married his midwife in bourgeois-ecclesial fashion, 
made things up with his old man and, together with midwife and 
Proudhon-Fourier Wiss, departed with his tail between his legs for 
America where he is prospering as a doctor, philosopher and 
member of the communia.*” 

Your 
K. M.