AT LE PERREUX 

London, 6 January 1892 

My dear Laura, 

The pears have arrived in very good condition, the few that were 
urgently in want of being devoured, have been at once attended to, 
and the rest is being gradually, thankfully and pleasurably con- 
sumed. That the old Fry’s Cocoa box should return to us with such 
agreeable contents, and as they say of expired directors in joint-stock 
companies, ‘offer itself for re-election’ next Christmas, was a pleasant 
surprise indeed. 

Paul wants to know about the constitution of the Board of 
Health. I will try to find it out, but am afraid I shall have to ask 
Tussy or Edward to hunt it up at the British Museum. If I only knew 
the year when the Board of Health was instituted, I might get the 
original Act of Parliament— if Sam was here, we should have it in 
a jiffy. 

Your intermittent husband seems to be indeed seized with the fever 
of the wandering Jew — perhaps he wants to supersede him by the 
wandering Nigger. Anyhow the proposition about separation of 
Church and State in the sense of the Commune was the best thing 
he could do, it stops their mouths at once. Especially now when the 
French Clergy begin to face the eventuality and try to make it out 
that they ought to be, in that case, disestablished as the Church of 
Ireland was, that is to say not only keep all their property, but 
have the salaries capitalised and bought off in a lump sum —les 
milliards de l'Eglise! aprés ceux de M. Bismarck! The priests are 
too much in a hurry for to pronounce this is to make it impossible. If 
the thing was kept quiet, and sprung upon the people all at once in 
the shape of a government proposition, the surprise might pass, and 
the Radicals would only be too glad to swallow it— but to have it 
discussed in public beforehand, is to ensure its failure. The French 
Republic, with its revolutionary principles of civil law, cannot buy off 

the Church in the way the English semi-feudal monarchy did. Here 
the system developed by Lassalle in Vol. Ist of his System der erworbenen 
Rechte is alone applicable, as it was exclusively applied by the 
Great Revolution. See Bernstein’s Introduction to Lassalle’s 
Works, if you have not got it I'll try to get it. It is Lassalle’s only 
juridical Leistung, and not a great one, but quite correct juridically. 
We ought to start it in France, and then set Longuet to work the Radi- 
cals in that sense. 

I have to interrupt again. Old Harney is laid up with bronchitis in 
Richmond — same complaint which last spring brought him to the 
grave’s edge. I must go and see him, but hope to be back in time to 
finish that letter. I am crushed with work, there are 1) proof-sheets 
and new preface of new English edition of Lage der arbeitenden Klassen 
in England, 2) revision of Edward’s translation of Entwicklung des So- 
zialismus — with another new preface, 3) German translation of my 
article in the Almanach before anybody else seizes upon it, 4) a lot of 
letters to answer. And then possibly I may return to Vol. III where 
just the very difficultest chapters of all await me. 

4.30 p.m. Just returned from Richmond where I found old Harney 
much better—hope it will last. 

I suppose you have got Louise’s Arbeiterinnen-Zeitung with the 
Vienna Arbeiter-Zeitung direct from Vienna. Your article reads uncom- 
monly well, Tussy’s article will be in next number, and as the pa- 
per is by its nature insatiable, I can only say that all further contribu- 
tions will be thankfully received, in the meantime I send you Louise’s 
thanks which like all thanks are double-edged, viz. 1) thanks for fa- 
vours received, 2) ‘a sense of favours to come’, as the bourgeois said. 

Poor Adler is sadly overworked, and moreover, the momentary rest 
he gets, he only gets as the nurse of his wife who is seriously ill — they 
are at Salo, Lago di Garda, for the present. And as Victor is responsi- 
ble for the filling of the paper, you do an indirect kindness to him and 
the Austrian party by helping to fill the women’s paper with good 
matter; the bourgeoises émancipées would only be too glad of an oppor- 
tunity of deposing their crotchets and nostrums in the working wom- 
en’s organ. 

Pumps has been out of sorts a bit, so that she could not come dur- 
ing the holidays, but we shall have her and the children here in the 
course of this month. 

What in the world made Vaillant fight that fool Gegout — égout? 

Love from Louise and myself to both of you. And do keep in mind 
the obligation you are under to come over here with Paul before long. 
It will do some of our working men good to see a live French député so- 
cialiste. 

A vous de coeur? 
F.E.