London, 25 January 1877 
Dear Ramm, 

Since I do not know whether Liebknecht is back from 
Offenbach,”** I am writing to you. 

aM. Block, Les théoriciens du socialisme en Allemagne. Extrait du ‘Journal des 
Economistes’. - & E. de Laveleye, ‘Le socialisme contemporain en Allemagne. I. Les 
théoriciens’, Revue des deux Mondes, Vol. 17, Paris, 1876. 

To begin with, it is nearly a fortnight now since I had any of the 
Dühring proof-sheets '* (the last, sent back at once, being Art.VI) 
and I’m afraid that a consignment may have gone astray. 

Next, I had requested Liebknecht * to send me the Nos. of the 
Neue Welt containing my biography of Wolff*’; I received the 
first 4 numbers, but since then it was only from the mutilated 
Neue Welts used for packing the Vorwdrts that I saw that the 
subsequent part had also appeared. Needless to say, I neither kept 
a copy of the manuscript here, nor did anything about getting 
hold of the thing, having taken Liebknecht at his word; would you 
be so good as to see to this before all numbers have been torn to 
pieces and used up? 

As to the by-elections, we over here are very much in the dark. 
All we know is that Rittinghausen is ‘in’, as the English say.7** A 
pity that the Christian-Social chaplain, Laaf, was licked; in the first 
place, it would have been amusing to watch him steering a middle 
course through the Reichstag and, in the second, since he was 
evidently doomed to make an ass of himself, he would have stirred 
up dissension among the working men at Aachen, thus giving us a 
chance of introducing the thin end of the wedge. 

What is most encouraging about the recent elections is the great 
progress made in the country, particularly in the big farming 
districts of Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg. Thence it’s an 
easy step to Pomerania and Brandenburg and, once inroads have 
been made into the schnapps country,’ it will soon be all up with 
the Prussian monarchy. 

Ever your friend, 

F. Engels