London, 30 November 1892 

My dear old Stumpf, 

You could have given me no greater pleasure on my seventy-second 
birthday than by sending me the Ultramontanist * confirmation of our 
victory in the Mainz elections. You Mainz people sometimes tend to be 

gas-bags—born wine salesmen—but when it comes to the point you can also 
buckle to and move mountains, and it will always be remembered in your 
favour that Mainz was the only German city to play an honourable role 
during the great revolution. “’ Nature gave you the gift of the gab which is 
just what is wanted when it comes to working on the peasants, the more so in 
that you have in the wine growers round about you a great quantity of 
material to work on. If you address yourself energetically to the task, you 
will be able to achieve something and show the Cologne people how it’s 
done. From Mainz to Cologne and down to Cleve there’s still many a poor 
soul to be snatched away from the priests and still many a constituency to be 
won, and this is precisely the moment when the gentlemen of the Centre ”' 
are on the point either of thoroughly compromising themselves over the 
military question or of leading the entire Centre up the garden path. 

Apart from that, I should like to send you my best thanks and to say how 
glad I am that you had been keeping well and have been feeling even ‘better’ 
since. I too am keeping well. We had the whole Brimstone Gang ” here on 
Sunday and a few more besides, all of whom vigorously addressed 
themselves to the wine cup." 

If we have a few more of these scandals in Paris ©, we may soon be able 
to re-enact the old comedy of autumn ‘47 in Brussels; the world is beginning 
to look shaky. 

Your old 
F. Engels