London, 13 September 1854 
28 Dean Street, Soho 

Dear Engels, 

Once again I must come knocking at your door, much though I 
detest doing so, but compelled by pressure from without. I cannot 
draw my bills for a few weeks yet, since IN CONSEQUENCE OF some 
unpleasantness he has had with Bischoffsheim in this connection, 
Freiligrath is no longer drawing bills of less than £25. On the 
whole, too, this is preferable, for while the constant drawing of- 
small sums may cover the dette flottante,* the fixed debt increases. 
On top of that, I shall have to deduct £8 for Freund from the 
next bill since, under the present circumstances, my wife will need 
rather more care. The extraordinary MEANS to which the family is 
wont to resort at times of crisis are acain exhausted and, just as in 
the case of the Spanish Budget everything is in pawn. 

By the by, as regards the ‘budget’ en général, 1 have reduced 
total indebtedness to under £50, i.e. about £30 less than it was at 
the beginning of the year. From this you can see that there have 
been some great financial sleights of hand. If a negotiation I have 
initiated with Lassalle succeeds, and he lends me £30, and you 
lend me the remainder, I would at last be independent again and 
reorganise all my domestic arrangements, whereas at present I 
have to pay out 25 per cent to the pawnshop alone, and in general 
am never able to get things in order because of arrears. As has 
once again been demonstrated in Trier, nothing will be achieved 
with my mater™” until I can go and importune her in person. 

Dans ce moment” the total absence of money is the more 
horrible — quite apart from the fact that family wants do not cease 
for an instant—as Soho is a choice district for cholera, the mos is 
croaking right and left (e.g. an average of 3 per house in Broad 
Street), and ‘victuals’°* are the best defence against the beastly 
thing. 

4 floating debt - > At this moment. 

So much for that. I am sending this letter to your private 
address because some strange combination of circumstances could 
cause precisely this by no means edifying epistle to fall into the 
wrong hands at your office. 

As regards the Asiatic business, a considerable stir has been 
made here by the dispatches from that theatre of operations in 
The Morning Chronicle, which have also been reproduced in The 
Observer and other weeklies.* 

I don’t know whether the news about the Zouaves’ cry ‘A bas les 
singes! Il nous faut Lamoriciére!’? has penetrated as far as 
Manchester. Espinasse, the first victim of this agitation, has been 
recalled to France.*? 

The party has been having a run of bad luck. Steffen has lost his 
post in Brighton through the bankruptcy of the schoolmaster in 
whose establishment he was employed. It is questionable whether 
he will manage to get the salary already due to him. Pieper has lost 
his post as correspondent to the Union, since Mr Pierce has 
likewise gone bankrupt, and his papers get no more money for 
foreign correspondents. MacGowan, Jones’ printer and source of 
credit, has died of cholera. A blow for Jones. AL! THis 1s NOT VERY 
PLEASANT. 

I don’t remember muck about Imandt. To inquire into it further 
would only make matters worse. But henceforward I shall break off 
the moment the gentleman makes any ‘reference’ to Dronke. 
Dronke ne vaut pas la peine d’en parler. 

Your 
K. M.