Boston, 31 August 1888 

Dear Sorge, 

The paper? arrived the day before yesterday and your letter> today. 
Thanks. But I’m sorry that your throat should still be troubling you and 
it would seem that you have actually appropriated my cough. If our 
staying with you gets us well and makes you ill, that is really rather 
dreadful. 

Were in Concord yesterday, in the Reformatory and the town. Both 
pleased us greatly. A prison where the prisoners can read novels and 
scientific works, form clubs, congregate and talk without warders being 
present, eat meat and fish twice a day with bread ad lib., iced water in 
every workroom, running water in every cell, the cells decorated with 
pictures, etc., where the chaps, dressed as ordinary workingmen, look 
you straight in the eye with none of the hang-dog look of the usual 
criminal in gaol—this is something you will see nowhere in Europe. 
The Europeans, as I told the superintendent, are not bold enough for 
that. To which he replied in true American fashion: well, we try to make 
it pay, and it does pay. I acquired a great respect for the Americans in 
that place. 

Concord is really beautiful, elegant in a way one wouldn’t have 
expected after New York or even Boston, but a splendid little place in 
which to be buried, though not alive! four weeks there would either kill 
me or drive me crazy. 

My nephew Willie Burns is a wonderful fellow, bright, energetic and 
with his heart and soul in the movement. He is doing well, works for the 
Boston and Providence Railroad (now the Old Colony‘), gets $12 a 
week, has a nice wife (whom he brought with him from Manchester) and 
three children. Nothing would induce him to return to England; he’s just 
the lad for a country like America. 

@ New Yorker Volkszeitung of 28 August 1888 — > of 30 August 1888 - ¢ the 
southern part of Massachusetts 

Rosenberg’s departure and the curious debate on the Sozialist in the 
Volkszeitung would seem to be symptoms of collapse.?8” 

Such news from Europe as reaches us over here is sparse and infre- 
quent and is supplied exclusively by the New York World and the 
Herald.* 

The last of the jobs Aveling has to do in America will be polished off 
today and thereafter his time will be his own. It is still uncertain whether 
we shall go to Chicago. We have ample time for the remainder of the 
programme. 

Warm regards to your wife and yourself from us all, but especially 
from 

Your 
F. Engels