London, 3 January 1895 
41 Regent’s Park Road, N. W. 

Dear Schorlemmer, 

I have not yet thanked you for your kind good wishes on my birthday and 
for your New Year’s card, my response in each case being a resounding 
Happy New Year. 

Here, too, all manner of changes have since taken place. At the beginning 
of last year Mrs Kautsky married Dr Freyberger, a young Viennese physician 
resident in this country, and we decided that, as we all wanted to remain 
together, we should take a larger house, one such being available close by. 
Hardly had we moved in and got things in order than Mrs Freyberger was 
delivered of a baby girl; mother and child are fit and well. Last summer 
Pumps and family also returned to London. Her husband’s* 

“Perry White Roscher 

business in the Isle of Wight was not doing particularly well and he therefore 
wants to try his luck again here. 

Carl’s book Rise and Progress *'’ was also sent to me not long ago. 
Volume I (re-edited by two young chemists") of the big text-book published 
in collaboration with Roscoe has come out. *'' In view of the usual terms 
governing payment for such works, it is unlikely that Carl’s heirs will 
receive much, if anything at all. 

Even though the Party Conference in Frankfurt ~* proved a somewhat 
feeble affair by comparison with its predecessors, mainly because Vollmar 
and the Bavarians literally caught the other deputies napping with their 
Bavarian ultimatum,” while the latter, fearing the possibility of a split, failed 
to reach a decision on the most important issues, the stupidity of our 
opponents will nevertheless help us overcome all these little tribulations. Not 
content with the Subversion Bill, *** those men of genius must needs institute 
proceedings against Liebknecht on account of a spot of bother in the 
Reichstag, **° i.e. actually make us the champions of the constitutional rights 
of the Reichstag! And it was precisely this new conflict that provided us with 
the opportunity of bringing the Berlin beer boycott to a victorious conclusion, 
** a victory which has made a great impression abroad and especially here in 
England, For despite their seventy years of publicly organised trade clubs and 
considerable freedom of association, the workers over here are very far from 
securing the kind of court of arbitration that was successfully fought for in 
Berlin. In the words of one paper: 

‘Kaiser William would do well to reflect on the fact that the men who 
have got the better of a beer barrel will also get the better of a sceptre.’ 

And that was our doing. In Germany there are now only two people whose 
speeches command general attention—the Kaiser William and August Bebel. 
His last speech was brilliant, but it must be read in the original transcript. *°' 

Though I am again in good health, I realise, of course, that 74 isn’t 47 and 
that I can no longer make so free with food, drink, etc. Nor am I as hardy as 
in the past. But I am nevertheless still perfectly robust for my age and trust I 
shall live to see this and that, especially if, as seems distinctly probable, the 
gentlemen in Berlin decide to engage in a slight tussle with the Constitution. 
“© The Prussian Junkers are quite capable of bringing 

418 

* Edvard Hjelt and Ossian Aschan - ° See this volume, pp. 357, 374-75 

Leuers- 1895 405 

about a situation in which the Social Democrats will be compelled to act as 
the defenders of the Imperial Constitution against a body of Junkers who not 
only infringe that Constitution but are intent on staging a coup d’état. That 
will suit us admirably. Let’s have at ‘em. Many regards from 

Yours 
F. Engels