Manchester, 9 December 1857 
Dear Moor, 

In haste, a few more particulars about the crisis. In Hamburg, 
where the crisis has been grossly exacerbated by the pedantry of 

a Literally: ‘a grove from not being light’. The expression, first used by Quintilian in 
De institutione oratoria (I, 6, 34), illustrates the practice ascribed to ancient Roman 
etymologists of deriving words from their semantic opposites, as lucus (‘grove’) from 
lucere (‘to shine, be light’) because a grove is not light. Marx means that despite its 
name The Morning Star is rather unilluminating. - > Literally: always partridge. 
Here: always the same thing. The phrase is attributed to the confessor of King Henry 
IV of France. 

the old and much-famed clearing bank, this is what has happened: 
Schunck, Souchay & Co. here had drawn bills on Hamburg. So as 
to be really on the safe side, and although the bills were on goods, 
etc., etc., they sent the drawees Bank or Encianp Seven Day Bus. 
These were indignantly returned as so mucu waste paper, and the bills 
drawn on Hamburg duly protested with the comment that only 
silver now had any value! Bills bearing the endorsements of 
Schunck, Souchay & Co. and 2 other equally good houses, 
maturing in 2 months, could not be discounted last week at less 
than 12'/2 per cent. 

NB. If I give you the names of the houses concerned, it is on 
the understanding that this remains strictly between ourselves. I 
could get into the devil of a row if such an abuse of confidential 
information were to come to light. 

The Liverpool and London propuce houses will come a cropper 
before long. Things look grim in Liverpool; the chaps are stone 
broke and can’t even summon up the energy to go bankrupt, 
while at the Exchange, or so I am told by someone who was there 
on Monday, faces are three times as long as they are here, though 
here too the storm clouds are growing steadily darker. Spinners 
and manufacturers are paying wages and buying coal with the 
money they get in for their goods and when that’s gone they’re 
sure to collapse. Yesterday the market was more listless and 
depressed than it had ever been before. 

Someone told me he knew of 5 or 6 Indian houses whose stocks 
are such that they cannot fail to go to the wall in the very near 
future. 

Only now are the fellows beginning to realise that the monetary 
speculation was the least important factor in the crisis, and the 
more they see this, the gloomier they look. 

Health good. More tomorrow or the day after. Herewith a 
bundle of Guardians. Take a look at the little bits of local news, in 
which you'll find some very interesting facts. 

Your 
F. E.