Manchester, 25 January 1858 

Dear Marx, 

The letters have all arrived safely. It will be utterly impossible to 
do the Bencat Reseiuion in the time stipulated and I would advise 
you, while you are about it, to point out to Mr Dana that, had he 
been more prompt in agreeing to our proposals and the list we 
sent him, he would have had all these articles long ago. He can 
perfectly well fit in Bencar Repetition as Hinpustan Repetion or 
something of the sort.?” As to the alleged howler,” I can’t look 
into it this moment, there being no time, but shall do so 
tomorrow. The item was taken from Brockhaus,” so it will probably 
be correct. 

Lassalle’s letter is still up here. 

I have the material ready for ‘Blenheim’, ‘Borodino’ and many 
more and you will be receiving a tor on Friday, provided the 
Indian maw doesn’t necessitate my doing an article, which seems 
unlikely judging by the telegraphic despatch. I shall have to look 
up ‘Bidassoa’, etc. But what is all this about Dana saying he 
had already asked for these articles? It’s the first I’ve heard 
of it. 

Harney will have written to tell you that poor Schramm died a 
week ago on Friday. I have no details yet. I wrote and asked 

a Brockhaus’ Konversations-Lexikon 

Harney,”” should he find anything in your handwriting or mine, 
to take it away and hold it at our disposal—it would be too bad if 
anything of that kind were allowed to fall into the hands of 
Mr Rudolf,? who has become an out-and-out Prussian. I had not 
thought Schramm would have any serious attacks before the 
spring. The poor fellow was putting up a splendid fight against 
the disease while I was there and, from what I hear, continued to 
do so until the end. Our old guard is rapidly dwindling away 
during this long spell of peace! 

Business here is very shaky. Every fortnight an attempt is made 
to push up cotton prices, the moment chosen being when a few 
spinners have to buy. It succeeds for three or four days and then 
prices fall again. Generally speaking we are now °/sd above the 
lowest point. It’s much the same with ourselves. As soon as prices 
become thoroughly depressed as a result of a fortnight’s stagna- 
tion, the Indian and Levantine buyers step into the market and 
force everything up; after that no one wants to buy and prices 
gradually fall again. Everything is still far from normal. The 
spinners are going on to full time, not because there is any real 
demand, but because others are doing so and because they’re 
heartily sick of short tmz. On the whole the spinners’ position has 
deteriorated because the difference in price between raw cotton 
and yarn has diminished. The Germans are stil] buying very little. 
Prospects here are far from brilliant; every day trade suffers a 
check because of attempts to force up prices and, if that doesn’t 
happen, they say that THERE IS AN IMPROVED FEELING IN THE MARKET. 
IMPROVED BE DAMNED! 

The enclosure for Lupus was a source of great pride and joy to 
the old man.” He sends his warmest regards to the writers. By the 
way I hardly saw him at all last week; we kept missing one another 
and later he had a slight touch of tic douloureux. 

Warm regards to the Famity. 

Your 
F. E.