Manchester, 6 January 1858 

Dear Moor, 

You will have had the article* in good time, at any rate, as I 
posted it before midnight on Monday, which means that it must 
have been delivered between 12 and 1 o'clock. 

I received Lassalle’s letter and also wrote to tell you how amused 
Lupus and I were at the man who wrote Heraclitus.” Can my 
letter have gone astray? ** 

During the worst of the crisis it was absolutely impossible for me 
to think of anything but the ceneratcrasu. I could neither read nor 
write and was, moreover, still irritable as a result of my illness. 
Then came the notipays with fox-hunting and other such frivolities, 
but now that’s all over and I am beginning to feel in need of a 
quieter occupation and way of life. Such being the case—with the 
added inducement of a good bout of catarrh—the letter C has 
come as a boon to me, and I shall embark on it this very evening. 
I don’t imagine it will take me very long; at any rate I shall put my 
best foot forward and you will be able to send something off each 
week. Come to that, if ‘Army’ arrived in October and in time for 
Volume 1** then surely C, arriving in January, will be in time for 
Volume III. In view of the crisis the chaps won’t be hurrying into 
print, otherwise Dana would have written long ago. If you hear 
from him, by the way, let me know. 

Incidentally the crisis, presently at a standstill, is about to take a 
new turn, at least so far as Manchester and the cotton industry are 
concerned. On Monday a great many spinners went to Liverpool 
and bought 12,000 bales in order to restock to some extent, since 
many of them had nothing left. This pushed up the price of 
cotton, and at the same time the Greeks entered the market here 
and bought a fair amount, which brought about a corresponding 
rise locally. In Manchester and in Liverpool, the price has already 
risen by “/sd (per Ib) above the lowest point. Now the buyers are 
shying away again but, if the easterlies persist, cotton and yarn will 

a F, Engels, ‘The Siege and Storm of Lucknow’. - > F. Lassalle, Die Philosophie 
Herakleitos des Dunklen von Ephesos. 

get even lower before the arrival of full shiploads round about 
February or March. What a thing to do, pushing up the price of 
yarn and cotton with FACTORIES ON short TIME! It can only result in 
restricting demand more than ever and, if this has no immediate 
effect on prices, it is merely because production rises and falls with 
demand. The price of middling is again somewhere between 6'/, 
and 6°/s—today probably 6'/sd, although I haven’t yet seen the 
closing prices. 

As regards produce, too, the difficulty of investing money seems 
to have enabled the chaps to effect once again a small, temporary 
rise which will last unti] the wind goes round to the west. 

The vast amount of surplus capital in the market is, by the way, 
truly astounding and proves yet again what colossal dimensions 
everything has assumed since 1847. It would not. surprise me in 
the least if, even before the crisis has passed through its remaining 
phases, this superfluity of Floating capita. were to bring about 
renewed speculation in shares. This superfluity of disposable 
capital has undoubtedly helped to keep speculation going in 
France, and to such good effect that now, having survived the 
panic, the Crédit mobilier 45 can claim to be one of the soundest 
institutions in the world. 

The letter about Lassalle must have reached you; have another 
look for it. I wrote it 2 or 3 days after receiving Lassalle’s 
letter. 

Enclosed with my day-before-yesterday’s article were a few lines 
from Lupus to your wife and the girls. Cordial regards to them 
from me. 

Your 
F. E. 

Today a line or two from Schramm saying that he had been 
rather worse but has now improved again. His worthy brothers 
now seem to be making the crisis a pretext for leaving him very 
much in the lurch. He talks of going either to Krefeld or to 
Virginia so as not to have to worry about where his next meal is 
coming from! I shall send. him five pounds.