Letter to Karl Marx, February 11, 1858

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 11 February 1858


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow, 1929
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 11 February 1858

Dear Moor,

Dana can't r e a d — t h e word is TEAM-HORSES, i.e. THE HORSES HARNESSED TO ANY GUN OR CARRIAGE IN ORDER TO DRAW IT. T h e e x p r e s s i o n 'TEAM' CrOpS u p frequendy elsewhere in the article[1] and if he wants an authority let him look u p the article on 'Artillery' in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Unfortunately I can't send you anything today. Yesterday I let myself be talked into attending a COURSING MEETING at which hares are hunted with greyhounds, and spent 7 hours in the saddle. All

in all, it did me a power of good though it kept me from my work, and I haven't got far enough with the stuff I've begun—'Burmah', etc., etc.—to have a hope of getting it ready in time for tonight. It's sickening to read long works on 'Burmah', yet be unable to make a decent job of the thing, AS IT MUST BE PRETTY SHORT. But I shall have my revenge with 'Cavalry'. Dana will be getting Griesheim in toto in so far as it applies.

Lupus has apparently retired from the world of pubs. During 4 visits to the Chatsworth, his regular haunt, I only ran into him once. Since I only go there on his account, it has been a great waste of time and something will have to be done about it.

I too have been sent Harney's rubbish.[2] For this Harro Harring, who lives in Jersey (though I never saw him), must take the chief blame. The description of Krefeld is killing. Real vintage Harney. He has turned Schramm's death into yet another great melodramatic spectacle, the principal role being played by G. J. H. of course. The whole affair, funeral and all, his letters headed HASTE! IMMEDIATE!, etc., and then the presumption of asking me to come to Jersey to figure among the crapauds and Waschlapskis[3] —I find the whole affair repugnant. He's a rotten little blighter and Jersey is just the right place for him; moreover he is absolutely delighted at having involved his paper in a libel action brought by François Godfrey, Jersey's feudal lord.[4]

The 'Engels ESQ' certainly does look very odd. I ought never to forgive Harney, if only because the best he has to say of me boils down to Esq. Grosse bête![5]

Jones, too, is evidently up to some pretty tricks. The obese Livesay, whom he appointed CHAIRMAN of his conference,[6] is a wretched little bourgeois who swears by Miall and who, in company with Sturge & Co., engineered the COMPLETE SUFFRACE SECESSION as long ago as 1842 when all the petty bourgeois withdrew.[7]

But NEVER MIND. Mr Bonaparte travaille pour nous. The way he is running things, we couldn't possibly ask for anything better. Espinasse, Minister of the Interior! THAT BEATS COCK FIGHTING. And on top of that, the idiocy of publishing those addresses.[8]

By the way, so that you don't start getting wrong ideas about my physical condition, let me tell you that yesterday I took my horse over a hedge and bank measuring 5 feet and some inches, the highest jump I've ever done. Clearly, EFFORTS of this kind presuppose moderately sound limbs if they are to be made without discomfort. After all, we want to show the Prussian cavalry a thing or two when we get back to Germany. The gentlemen will find it difficult to keep up with me for I've already had a great deal of practice and am improving every day. I'm getting quite a reputation, as time goes on. But only now am I getting to grips with the real problems of riding over difficult country; it's a highly complicated business.

Kind regards to your wife and children. A few articles at any rate will arrive by Monday. As regards India I think we might wait for one more mail, unless anything of real interest crops up.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ F. Engels, 'Artillery'.
  2. ↑ The Jersey Independent
  3. ↑ crapauds and Waschlapskis Engels means French and Polish petty bourgeois refugees in Jersey.
  4. ↑ Many remnants of feudalism still survived in Jersey at the time. Local big landowners, lawyers and bankers (François Godfrey in particular) controlled all administrative institutions and the Royal Court. The radical Reform League (consisting of local traders, small shipowners and bank clerks), founded by Harney in September 1857, and The Jersey Independent edited by him, came out against their arbitrary rule and encroachments on the interests of tenants.—196, 264, 308
  5. ↑ Silly ass! (Engels wrote this paragraph in the margin.)
  6. ↑ Ernest Jones proposed as early as April 1857 to hold such a conference and to invite bourgeois radicals. In calling for an alliance with the radicals in order to campaign jointly for electoral reform Jones hoped to revive the mass Chartist movement on this basis. However, he made serious political concessions to the radicals when working out a common platform for uniting with them. Of the six points of the People's Charter (universal suffrage, annual Parliaments, vote by secret ballot, equal constituencies, abolition of property qualifications for candidates to Parliament, and payment of M.P.s) he retained only the demand for universal manhood suffrage. Jones' conciliatory policy caused discontent among the rank-and-file of the National Charter Association. After repeated postponements a joint conference of Chartists and bourgeois radicals was convened in London on 8 February 1858. Marx and Engels regarded Jones' conciliation with the radicals as a manifestation of his political vacillation and broke off their friendly relations with him until a few years later, when Jones again adopted a revolutionary stand.—210, 249, 264, 375
  7. ↑ In 1842 bourgeois radical Free Traders made attempts to obtain control of the Chartist movement. To divert the workers from the Chartists' social and political programme they put forward a vague demand for what they called 'complete suffrage'. Joseph Sturge, Edward Miall, Joseph Livesay and other radicals, supported by some conciliatory-minded Chartist leaders (Lovett and others), managed to convoke two conferences of bourgeois radicals and Chartists in Birmingham in 1842 to discuss a joint campaign for electoral reform. However, the Chartist majority at the conferences rejected the proposal to substitute a new 'BUI of Rights' and the 'complete suffrage' demand for the People's Charter, which led to a break between the Chartists and radicals.—264
  8. ↑ After Orsini's attempt on the life of Napoleon III on 14 January 1858, Le Moniteur universel and other official newspapers began publishing chauvinistic addresses of loyalty by higher social and military circles. Many of them accused Britain of granting asylum to terrorists and assassins like Orsini and demanded that they be persecuted in their 'den'. The publication of these addresses was regarded in Britain as an indirect threat and caused an aggravation of Anglo-French relations in 1858.—264