{London,] 25 May 1859 

Dear Fred, 

As things stand here just now, it’s doubtful whether I shall be 
able to leave London, certainly not at the beginning of next week. 

It is now a whole fortnight, or so I see from a note in my diary, 
since I sent that scoundrel Duncker the last 3 proof-sheets (i. e. 
sheets 9-11). The thing* was ready, therefore, and all the chap had 
to do was send me the clean proofs of the last 3 sheets for the list of 
misprints. Instead of that, what do I get? Lassalle’s pamphlet” and, 
as we hadn’t any money in the house and pretty well everything 
has been pawned that can be pawned, I had to send my last 
wearable coat to the pawnshop since there was 2/- to pay on this 
rubbish, which might perhaps cost 8d in Berlin. But to come to 
the point: 

It is now event, then, that a further fortnight’s embargo has 
been placed on my thing in order to make way for Mr Lassalle. 
The work still to be done on it would take 3 hours at the most. 
But that infernal and conceited fool has decreed the embargo in 
order to secure the undivided attention publici. Duncker, the 
swine, is happy as a sandboy, however, since it gives him a further 
excuse to postpone payment of my fee. I shan’t forget the trick 
the little Jew has played. The speed with which his tripe was 
printed shows that he was magna pars’ responsible for our stuff 
being delayed. Besides the oaf is so enamoured of his laborious 
emanations that he takes it for granted that I’m burning with 
impatience to see his ‘anonymous’ pamphlet and am ‘objective’ 
enough to take the killing of my stuff as a matter of course. 

The confounded Jew in Vienna‘ hasn’t written either. 

Lupus is greatly mistaken about Liebknecht if he imagines that 
this worthy citizen could himself have composed a piece such as 
‘Der Reichsregent’.*"” Biskamp wrote it’ (I gave him the racrs) and 
it must be Biskamp that writes everything. Nothing is attributable to 
Liebknecht save the ‘Politische Rundschau’, dated London with the 

a K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. -» Der italienische Krieg 
und die Aufgabe Preufens - <« of the public - 4 in large measure - ¢ Max Friedlan- 
der - § [E. Biskamp,] ‘Der Reichsregent’, Das Volk, No. 2, 14 May 1859. 

symbol a, and not even all of that.* Liebknecht’s uselessness as a 
writer is only equalled by his unreliability and weakness of 
character, about which I shall have more to say later. The fellow 
would have been kicked out for good this week had there not 
been special circumstances that necessitated his being kept on for a 
while as a scarecrow. 

Even if my private circumstances—apart from waiting for 
Duncker—were not likely to preclude my coming up to Manches- 
ter next week, there would be the further consideration that, were 
I to abandon my post, everything might easily go to rack and ruin 
in view of the vast intrigues being conjured up here, there, and 
everywhere by the émigré democrats, the merchants of Camber- 
well, the Weitlingians, etc., etc., and in view of the extraordinary 
feebleness of the people who are supposed to represent us here. 
Yesterday, by the by, I got Pfander to give categoric instructions to 
that inert hunk of flesh, Schapper, to the effect that if he did not 
rejoin the Workers’ Society (the so-called communist one)” 
forthwith and take over the MAnacement thereof, I would sever all 
‘connections’ with him. This is the one sphere in which we could 
make use of the hippopotamus, yet the fool thinks it beneath him. 
Mais nous verrons.” Never have we had a poorer srarr. Pieper would 
have been very useful just now, instead of which he is in Bremen 
and doesn’t even write. 

Salut. : 
Your 
K. M.