in London 
Manchester, 2 April 1857

Manchester, 2 April 57
Dear Marx,

Potter is a terribly tall, enormously fat fellow, about 46 years old, red-haired and leathery, was three times Mayor of Manchester, very jolly, has no brains but a great deal of belly and arse, introduced robes in the town council here apropos of the Queen’s visit, was knighted for it, all his life has been a great whoremonger (still a bachelor), specially intimate with the famous Miss Chester (alias Polly Evans), for whom he furnished the brothel on two occasions and towards whose law expenses when she was brought before the assizes in Liverpool for inducing an abortion and was acquitted, he is supposed to have contributed £50.– A man who will greatly please the country squires, and whose entire renown rests on the fact that his father, Sir Thomas P., Knight, was in his day the leader of the Liberal movement here, and introduced Milner Gibson here. He himself is popular with whores, cab-drivers, publicans, street urchins and the less respectable sort of philistine generally. When he was Mayor the whores had peace from the police. Views: mildly Liberal.

J.A. Turner is a solid philistine who still remembers that he once went bankrupt, and who in his limited circle, as President of the commercial association (rival of the more liberal chamber of commerce), makes himself more or less useful. May, on commercial matters of detail, gain some influence in the House of Commons. Is a (mild) Tory and very rich. His eldest son Jack Turner, commonly called the fat boy, is a great boozer and a good billiards player, his second, a cheeky young scamp, foxhunter with considerable pretensions to being a fine horseman, a repulsive mug and a red moustache. To the horror of his family he has married the ballet-dancer Annie Payne.

Your
F. E.