MARX TO ENGELS” 

[London,] 23 January 1857 
9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, 
Haverstock Hill 

Dear Engels, 
D’abord,” very many thanks for your kind letter. 
I wrote to Olmsted about 10 days ago; am therefore awaiting his 

reply. It strikes me that Dana’s annoyance over Freiligrath’s 
blabbing his secret has something to do with the Tribunés 

4 no matter - > First 

behaviour, or rather with the fact that Dana has not brought his 
influence to bear. '’ 

To work for The New-York Herald is out of the question; The 
New-York Times is the one to go for. I am thinking of approaching 
them unobtrusively through Dr Abraham Jacobi, who is at least 
discreet and whose quiet manner seems to impress the Yankees 
GENERALLY. I intend to write to him next Tuesday, and at the same 
time to Dana in such a manner as will at any rate involve him in a 
contretemps more disagreeable than he had bargained for. I 
should be grateful if you could let me have by Tuesday—after 
Tuesday I shall probably discontinue the articles for the Tribune 
pending further news from New York—a military article on 
Persia* No need for much detail this time. Just a few general 
strategic views. The Tribune probably imagines that, now they have 
turned me out, I shall resign myself to abandoning the American 
camp altogether. The prospect of their ‘military’ and ‘financial’ 
monopoly going over to another paper is hardly likely to please 
them. Accordingly, I have today sent them a ‘financial’ piece. '* An 
introduction to the Persian war,’° however cursory, would be 
important because it would give them to understand that we still 
have a ‘war’ up our sleeves with which other papers could be 
helped to make a splash. The (military) prospects of the Russians 
and English need only be hinted at, of course. 

So I shall postpone any outright rupture until I find out 
whether I can fix anything up elsewhere in New York. If I cannot 
and the Tribune, for its part, does not change its attitude, then the 
break will have to be made, of course. But in a sordid contest like 
this I believe it important to gain time. It seems to me the Tribune 
has come to believe that, since the ‘great turn’ taken by events in 
America,'*° it can dispense with all special editions (European 
ones, at least). It’s truly nauseating that one should be condemned 
to count it a blessing when taken aboard by a blotting-paper 
vendor such as this. To crush up bones, grind them and make 
them into soup like paurers in the workhouse—that’s what the 
political work to which one is condemned in such large measure in 
a concern like this boils down to. I am aware I have been an ass in 
giving these laddies more than their money’s worth—not just 
recently but for years past. 

Pieper is taking a schoolmaster’s post SOMEWHERE between 
Portsmouth and Brighton; has been chasing after something of 
the kind for months. 

a F. Engels, ‘Prospects of the Anglo-Persian War’. 

What about that apventure of Lupus’? You forgot to say 
anything about it. 

Your 
K. M. 

P.S. I envy fellows who can turn somersaults. It must be a 
splendid way of ridding the mind of vexation and bourgeois 
ordure. 

I saw in The Morning Advertiser an excerpt, strategic in content, 
from the Grenzboten concerning the Persian business.