in Madrid

London, 11 March 1872

My dear Lafargue,

If you wish to entrust your affairs to me, I shall be glad to attend to them; you need only write to your attorney, sending me your shares and bonds by money letter, addressed to me at 122, Regent’s Park Road, which I shall keep together with my own; as regards the coupons, dividends and interest, I can tell you nothing until I have seen the documents, but there will be no difficulty in putting things in order. As to the sum of cash, I think it would be best if you had it sent to Madrid in the form of a bill of exchange and deposited the amount with a banker there, provided there are any who could be entrusted with it. If, however, you prefer to hand it over to me as well, I would ask you to give formal instructions for it to be sent in the form of a bill of exchange drawn on me and payable in London (or a payment order), likewise by money letter. In either case the bill must have a short date. Or better still, you split the sum and instruct your attorney to send one part to Madrid and the other to me. As you wish. In any case, transfer by bill of exchange is far better than by banknotes. You lose on both methods, but probably less on the bill; in the event of theft the banknote is lost for ever, whereas a money letter is difficult for a thief to cash, and besides, payment can be stopped in such a case.

There is, even so, always a certain risk with money letters when they are sent abroad; I know of no other means, however, of getting your shares, etc., to me. Incidentally, we have lately acquired a great deal of experience with money letters, because our correspondence, unless sent registered, does not always arrive, whereas up to now our money letters have arrived without exception.

I have sent you several newspapers from here, for example on 14 February four cuttings from the *Eastern Post*, the *Volksstaat*, the Zürich *Tagwacht* and the New York *Socialiste*;

on 21 February the *Eastern Post*, the *Socialiste* and the French edition of the Statutes (for *La Emancipación*).

Tomorrow I shall send you 2 copies of the *Eastern Post*. Unfortunately, the two addresses of the old ladies are the only ones we have, and it would be very important to have yet another, both for letters and for newspapers, since otherwise they are bound to attract attention.

I can well understand that our friends there are in reality far more practical than appears from their newspapers, and I also know precisely why. I am quite sure, for instance, that when they demand that, in the wake of important events, the land and the instruments of labour should pass immediately to those who ought to have them, they know very well that this cannot be carried out, but they have to raise this demand for the sake of consistency. We must take full account of their situation. The Bakuninist filth cannot be cleared up in a day; it is enough that a serious start has at last been made on it.

From the last circular of the Jurassians you will have seen in what a total fiasco that ridiculous campaign has ended. The General Council’s circular in reply is, however, in print, and you can already prepare our friends there for the fact that we are going to handle these people very harshly and that all the facts we have against them – they are scandalous enough – will be laid before the Association. We must now make an end of this sect. For months Mohr and I have completely wasted our time on them, and this cannot go on. Only yesterday I had to send off to Naples a whole pamphlet of twelve closely written pages to refute their absurdities. In Naples they are all Bakuninists, and there is only one among them, Cafiero, who at least is well-intentioned and with whom I am in correspondence.

On other matters I am writing to your wife.

Mrs Engels sends you both her greetings.

Your sincere  
General