| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 9 May 1851 |
TO MARX IN LONDON
[Manchester,] Friday, 9 May 1851
Dear Marx,
Yesterday I sent you 2 letters, one containing nothing but a POST OFFICE ORDER, the other through Tupman.[1] I hope you received them both.
As far as the construction goes, the electrical business is simple.[2] At the four corners, A, B, C and D—I assume that you have the drawing before you—pegs are driven into the ground and a stout wire, buried 3 inches below ground, is led from one of these pegs to the next, so that it encompasses the whole field below the surface. At E and F, North and South, two poles are driven into the ground, the tops of which, 15 feet above the surface, are also connected by a wire. The two ends of this wire are carried down the poles and connected below ground with the buried wire, A B C D. Similarly a transverse wire from G to H, on two posts, crossing the wire E F at its centre. I'm not quite clear about the function of the bag of charcoal and the plates of zinc, since I have forgotten the electrical properties of charcoal—but I suspect that, by means of this charcoal at G and zinc at H, both of them also buried and connected to the main buried wire, the fellow intends to polarise the electricity, to establish a positive (zinc) and a negative (charcoal) pole.
The rest is concerned with technical matters, insulation of the wires, etc.
Since you say nothing else about the subject, I assume that the business refers to some sort of experiment; I believe you once told me that it had appeared in The Economist or some such paper.[3] I'm a little doubtful about the success of the thing, but maybe something could be made of it if it were expanded and improved. The question remains: 1) how much electricity can be extracted from the air by this means and, 2) how that electricity affects the growth and germination of plants. Anyhow, let me know if the experiment has already been carried out and with what success, and where an account of it may be found.
In any case there are two snags about the thing:
1. The fellow wishes the wire, which is to catch the electricity, to lie due north and south, and instructs the FARMERS to lay it out by compass. He makes absolutely no mention of magnetic variation, which here in England is of the order of 20-23 degrees, and he should at least say whether he has taken this into account. The FARMERS, at any rate, know nothing about magnetic variation and would lay the wire according to the compass needle, which, however, would not be pointing from north to south, but from north-north-west to south-south-east.
2. If the effect of the electricity is to encourage the germination and growth of plants, it will cause them to germinate too early in the spring, thus exposing them to night frosts, etc. Anyhow, this would inevitably come to light and could be remedied only by disconnecting the overhead and underground wires during the winter. This point, too, the fellow fails to mention. But either the electricity so caught has no effect whatever on growth, or it forces it prematurely. Here again, elucidation is required.
There's no assessing the thing, however, until it's been tried out and the results are available, so let me know where I can find out more about the subject.
I render thanks to the Lord on high that the Central jackasses[4] have come together again, and I don't even begrudge them their Kosmos. We shall, after all, have a press organ again soon, so far as we need one, in which we shall be able to repel all attacks without appearing responsible for so doing.[5] That is the advantage the proposed Cologne monthly will have over our Revue. We'll lay the entire responsibility on the bonhomme Bürgers; after all, he must get something for his profound thinking.
It was only to be expected that vituperation should breed in Germany no less freely than in America and London. You are now in the proud position of being attacked by two worlds at once, something that never happened to Napoleon. Our friends in Germany, incidentally, are jackasses. To ignore mere vituperation, apart from issuing a brief comment once a quarter on the state of this savoury TRADE, may be all very well. But when it comes to slander, when the democratic philistine, no longer content with the simple conviction that one is the blackest of monsters, begins to lay about him with trumped-up and distorted facts, then it would really not be asking too much of these gentlemen that they should send one the document so that one could take steps accordingly. But your German thinks he's done enough if he simplement[6] does not believe such nonsense. So get Tupman to write to Miquel, telling him that there's no actual need for an immediate reply; rather, having accumulated a few dozen examples of the stuff, one should let fly in earnest and squash the bedbugs d'un seul coup de pied[7] . As for their seeking to make it impossible for us to live in Germany—laissons-leur ce plaisir![8] They can't erase from history the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, the Manifesto[9] and tutte quante[10] , and all their howling will avail them nothing. The only people in Germany who might be dangerous to us are hired assassins and, now that Gottschalk's dead, no one there would have the courage to turn such people loose on us. Et puis[11] again, in 1848 in Cologne were we not first compelled to fight for our position—and anyway we shall never be loved by the democratic, the red, or even the communist mob.
I'm glad that the Exhibition chaps have so far left you in peace. I'm already being plagued by them. Two merchants from Lecco were here yesterday, one of them an old acquaintance of 1841.
The Austrians are managing very nicely in Lombardy. After all the levies, the succession of compulsory loans, and thrice yearly tax demands, things are at last becoming regularised. The average merchant in Lecco has to pay 10,000-24,000 zwanzigers (£350-700) a year—in direct, regular taxes, all in HARD CASH. Since Austrian bank-notes are also to be introduced there next year, the government intends to withdraw all metallic currency beforehand. This means that the great aristocracy—i gran ricchi[12] —and the peasants will, relatively speaking, be let off very lightly, the whole burden falling on il medio liberale, the liberal middle classes of the cities. You can see the policy these fellows are pursuing. Under this sort of pressure—in Lecco they have sent the government a signed declaration to the effect that they will pay no more even if it means distraint, but rather emigrate en masse if the system is not abandoned, and already several have suffered distraint—it is understandable that the fellows are waiting for Mazzini and declare that things must come to a head because they can stand it no longer, perché rovinati siamo e rovinati saremo in ogni caso![13] This explains much of the Italians' furious desire to go into the attack.
The fellows here are all republicans and highly respected bourgeois at that—one of them is the leading merchant in Lecco and pays 2,000 zwanzigers a month in taxes. He asked me straight out when the fun was going to begin, since in Lecco—the only place where I'm popular—they had come to the conclusion that I must know the exact day and hour.
Tomorrow Wellington, whom these fellows have kept me from.
Your
F. E.
This letter is sealed with sealing-wax and our firm's seal, E. & E. So you'll be able to see if it's been opened.