Dear Liebknecht,

Volksblatt? 1-4, and 7 copies of 5,° received with thanks, also
your letter.

I would gladly contribute to the Volksblatt if time permits and
opportunity arises. But just now I shall have to desist from all journalistic activity for a while until I have at last completed the third vol-
ume.‘

As in the case of the Neue Zeit and other papers, I have to lay down
two conditions: 1. that in articles signed by me, nothing be altered
without my consent, 2. that fees, if any, are paid into the party funds
as my contribution.

The first thing to be eliminated from the Volksblatt is the deadly
boring tone which has now pervaded it. The Hamburger Echo is a cosmopolitan paper by comparison, though the leading articles may be
dry; otherwise its tone is urbane and smacks of a big city. The
Volksblatt, on the other hand, is largely written as though in

@ Schorlemmer’s jocular name- » Berliner Volksblatt - ‘ with Engels’ article ‘Reply to
Mr Paul Ernst’-* of Capital

a dream and Lenchen maintains that the Sankt Johann-Saarbriicker Zeitung is more interesting. This impression of somnolence is what has al-
ways struck us about the paper. Them Berliners prides themselves on
their wit, does they? Cor lummy!! So put a bit of life into the thing,
otherwise our Political Advertiser will be competing altogether too
unfairly against its Prusso-German counterpart *—— and we can’t after all take that for our model.

Besides the papers in question, I am sending you a Daily Chronicle
containing the true story of the recent Gas scares when one or two officious generals wanted to send 700 troops to Becton (east of the East
End, on the Thames).°° This will show you what kind of paper it is.

I am glad that you should both be settling down so quickly in Berlin. :
Tussy and Guesde will probably be coming from Lille to join you.

Your
F. E.
Warm regards to your wife and children.