Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann, July 17, 1870

JENNY MARX (DAUGHTER) TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN

IN HANOVER

[London,] 17 July 1870

My dear Doctor,

I hope you do not think that laziness or negligence has had anything to do with my silence. The fact is, that I no sooner received your letter than I wrote to Mr Pigott, the editor of The Irishman to enquire of him where I could obtain a photograph of O'Donovan Rossa. Mr Pigott wrote to say that he was unable to give me any information on the subject (the British Government does not allow the portraits of the Fenians to be sold) but that he had sent my letter to Mrs Rossa, as that lady could perhaps procure for me a photograph of her husband. Now I have waited from day to day for a letter from Mrs Rossa—but in vain—and as I think it will be of no use to wait any longer, I write these lines to ask you whether the enclosed print,^[1] which appeared some time ago in The Irishman will be of any use to Mr Risse? It certainly is a very bad likeness—but it is better than nothing.

It would be a thousand pities to give up the excellent plan of publishing Rossa's portrait. Its publication would greatly annoy John Bull—for the British Government dreads nothing so much as that its infamous treatment of the Fenian prisoners should become known on the Continent. Indeed, the Prison Enquiry is solely got up for the purpose of hushing up the unpleasant truths that were oozing out. On the eve of the Enquiry, the pretended object of which is to elucidate things, the prisoners are more closely guarded than ever, lest they might inform their friends of the treatment they are undergoing. A few days ago Mrs Luby, wife of one of the prisoners, visited her husband to bear to him the tidings of his mother's death, (grief for her son's sufferings hastened Mrs Luby's death) and though the unfortunate woman had not seen her husband since three years, she was not allowed to see him face to face without the intrusion of a jailor. Mrs Luby was led into one huge iron cage grated with heavy iron bars, Luby