London, 23 October 1886 

My dear Laura, 

To-day [ have a bit ofa holiday that is to say no proof-sheets, * and 
the prefaces are as good as done. So I profit of it to write to you. 
Proofs are now up to sheet 40, or p. 644 of German 3rd edition. But 
there is a hitch again, otherwise I should be busy to-day at them 
again. It’s awful work, every sheet 3 proofs, and a good many altera- 
tions to make in the text; the latter part of the manuscript was any- 
thing but ausgefeilt,° when we had to cede to pressure and hand it in 
to the printer. Sam Moore, in the polishing of the text, is invaluable 
to me, he has a capital eye for these things and a very ready hand. 
But I shall be glad when it’s done, as it is I cannot take anything 
else in hand and there are about 5 jobs awaiting in my desk. 

I certainly do hope that you will not again put off your journey till 
some other time which may be less foggy meteorologically but which 
after all would leave us both in a fog of fresh uncertainty. As to Schor- 
lemmer he arrived here quite knocked up, had been laid up at home 
for a week with indigestion (it was the Vaterland I suppose he could 
not digest) and was in an awfully down-in-the-mouth mood here all 
the time —since then I have not heard a word from him. 

I send you herewith two more letters from our transatlantic travel- 
lers,“ please keep the lot for me until you come over, unless you re- 
turn them before. They were yesterday in Providence (Rhode Island) 
and are now on the road from New England to the Great Lakes, stop- 
ping half way to-morrow at Albany and Troy (New York State) on 
the Hudson. °°! The press in the New England manufacturing districts 
has been almost cordial in its reception, thus showing not only its 
own dependence upon the working people, but also an evident sym- 
pathetic feeling towards socialism on the part of the latter. I am very 
glad of this and also of the favourable effect they have made on the 
bourgeois press generally, more particularly on account of their im- 

* of the English translation of the first volume of Capital (see Note 56)-° polished 
-° Eleanor Marx-Aveling and Edward Aveling 

pending arrival in Chicago where the bourgeois, six weeks ago, 
seemed inclined to get up police rows on their arrival. But they 
will hardly attempt anything of the kind in the face of the decided 
change in public opinion down East. 

The Vienna anarchist plot is a pure police affair. °°9 The best proof 
is in the self-inflaming bottles the poor fools were told to put in timber 
yards to set them on fire. A bottle with nitric acid, stopped with cot- 
ton impregnated with sulphuric acid. This latter was to percolate and 
on reaching the nitric acid, was expected to cause an explosion and 
fire!! Thus the same police which excited the anarchist jackasses to 
this plot, took damned good care that the fire bottles were perfectly 
harmless. But the present anti-proletarian jurisprudence will there as 
everywhere find means to convict them of arson. 

Yesterday I had a card from an unknown place in Canada ‘Rolan- 
drie, P.O. Whitewood’: ‘Verehelicht*: Dr R. Meyer, Mathilda 
Meyer, geb.” Trautow.’ This must be a cousin of his whom he left on 
his farm last winter to mind it. On the back a few words in French 
from a Comte Ives de Rossignac or Prossignac that Meyer has had an 
accident and cannot use his right hand for a short time, and therefore 
cannot write himself. That is the end of another of your adorers. The 
grapes being sour, people take to crab-apples. 

The successful issue of the Lyons Congress I read in the Cri,° but 
nevertheless Paul’s comments and details were very welcome to 
me. °*° Things seem everywhere ripe for us and we have only to 
gather in the fruit; all old-fashioned forms of socialism are exploded 
while nothing can touch our theory, and so the working people need 
only stirring up — whenever they get into movement, no matter how, 
they are sure to come round to us. 

Altogether things are going on bravely in France. Vierzon!° con- 
tinues Decazeville,°*5 and rightly so. The government must be 
taught to respect their own laws and to get used to strikes. And on the 
other hand the discipline of a strike is most useful to the French work- 
ing men; a movement in which strict legality is the first condition of 
success, and where all revolutionary brag and explosion necessarily 
brings on defeat. This discipline is the first.condition of successful and 
lasting organisation, and the thing most feared by the bourgeoisie. 
And as it has brought on one ministerial crisis, °*! it may bring on 
more. As matters stand, it looks as if the present Chamber would soon 

* married -> née-° Cri du Peuple 

become impossible and have to be dissolved. I believe it will be very 
necessary to prepare for that event, for im the next general election 
the Socialists ought to force the Radicals *?° to place at least 20 of our 
people on the list for Paris; and the next Chamber ought to abolish 
scrutin de liste.°75 Paul ought to get into Parliament next time, he has 
effaced himself a good deal in favour of Guesde, Deville and others, 
taken the hard anonymous work upon himself and left to the others 
not only all the pay but also the greater part of the credit. I think the 
time is approaching when he ought to assert himself a little more. He 
is decidedly the best writer amongst the lot — now that he has once 
found his happy vein and sticks to it—-and also the most studious. 
And he is far more than all the rest in constant touch with the in- 
ternational movement. He and Guesde at the very least ought to 
get in next time and shape for it from now. Guesde may be more 
flashy as an orator but Paul would be far better in bringing out 

facts. 

However by next spring we may have a European war which up- 
sets all our calculations being incalculable in its results. About that 
I shall write Paul? as soon as I find time. Now I must conclude, hav- 
ing just time enough left to send a few words to Tussy by to-day’s 
mail. 

Nim is very jolly and sends her love. 

Yours affectionately, 
F.E. 

Liebknecht’s wine-revolution is not very formidable, considering 
that he finds the most horrid wine ‘famos’.°