Letter to Friedrich Engels, April 24, 1860

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 24 April 1860


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 41


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 24 April 1860

DEAR Frederick,

Herewith a letter from Weber. From that letter I learn for the first time (what the jackass might have been kind enough to tell me earlier on) that he did not originally file a civil but a criminal action for injuria against Zabel, which means that, under Prussian law, the application has to be countersigned by the Royal Procurator's Office. Since this has been refused, he has appealed. It is, of course, 'an issue of public importance'[1] to the Prussian government that we should be traduced to the utmost.

From his letter you will see that he also instituted the civil action on the 18th.

Will you let Dr Heckscher know about this business and give him some notes (a few lines) on the subject for the Hamburg Reform}'' He has himself repeatedly offered to do me a service of this kind, and the matter has got to be brought out into the open (if only to instil a little caution into the Prussian government). I am also writing to Siebel to this effect. Indeed, the public must not be allowed to suppose that the matter has lapsed.

The stuff from Lommel (I have got six or seven more documents from him)[2] contains ample CIRCUMSTANTIAL EDIVENCE of Vogt's bribery. Vogt no longer feels safe in Geneva and has therefore applied for Schwyz citizenship. I hope, by the by, that one of these days you will write me a proper letter telling me just how your affairs are going. It's not very friendly of you to treat me with the reserve that might be appropriate in the case of others.

How goes it with your health? I've been most anxious about it.

Your

K. M.

The Perrier business had been prearranged with Bonaparte, but never attained the dimensions originally envisaged.[3] J. Perrier was in Paris with Fazy, and was seen there by Becker's son.[4]

No answer as yet from Fischel, to whom I wrote[5] on the subject of your pamphlet[6] (Schily has also badgered him about it).

While, in the West German Strassburger Zeitung,b the literary Zouaves keep up the skirmish, so too do the literary Cossacks in the German Baltische Monatsschrift (Riga); we 'Teutons' are thus under attack on both flanks.1

  1. ↑ Marx plays on a passage from the ruling of 18 April 1860 by Lippe, Public Prosecutor at the Royal Municipal Court in Berlin, rejecting Marx's libel suit against Zabel on the grounds that 'no issue of public importance is raised by this matter which could make it desirable for me to take any action' (see this volume, p. 131).
  2. ↑ ibid., p. 123.
  3. ↑ This refers to the attempt by a group of Geneva radicals, supporters of James Fazy, to seize, on 30 March 1860, the towns of Thonon and Evian (on the southern shore of Lake Geneva), which under the Turin treaty of 24 March 1860 between France and the Kingdom of Sardinia were to be turned over to France (see present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 199-201).
  4. ↑ Gottfried Becker; see this volume, p. 134.
  5. ↑ This letter by Marx has not been found.
  6. ↑ Savoy, Nice and the Rhine