Letter to Friedrich Engels, August 21, 1875

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MARX TO ENGELS

IN RAMSGATE

Karlsbad, 21 August 1875 Germania, Schlossplatz

Dear FRED,

I arrived here last Sunday.'⁰⁴ Dr Kraus had already left for Gmünd where he has joined his family; has sorted out his relations with his wife.

As was my intention, I am now my own doctor and, as Dr Gans confided to me more in sorrow than in anger, the same applies to one third of the older visitors to the spa. Another very therapeutic factor so far as I am concerned is the absence of my personal physician Kugelmann.

Though the dramatis personae may change, the public here looks much the same one time as another: Quetelet's AVERAGE MAN 105 is the exception; instead, extremes prevail — round as a barrel and thin as a rake.

I spend at least 12 hours out of doors, and once I have completed my business, my principal diversion consists in discovering new walks, beauty spots and vistas in the mountain forests, and here I am the more subject to surprises for having so little sense of direction.

As from today—when I received chits in return for the spa tax—I am safe from the police. I registered as a D. Phil, and not as a rentier, which is advantageous to my pocket. My namesake, the Vienna chief of police, is civil enough to arrive here always at the same time as myself.

Yesterday I went to the Hopfenstock, renowned for its beer, to drink my glass of Giesshübler mineral water. There were some Karlsbad philistines there, and the entire conversation turned on what is locally an everlasting bone of contention, viz., the respective merits of the old Pilsner, Bürgerbräu and commercialised beer. 'Aye,' says one, 'I can sup 15 glasses (and they're big 'uns) of the old stuff and be none the worse.' 'Well,' says another, 'I used to stick up for it too, but now I'm above such bickering. I drink all and any of 'em and the result's the same,' etc. Beside these sagacious NATIVES, however, there sat two Berlin SWELLS, Referendarien or some such. They were arguing about the merits of the coffee in the various well-known Karlsbad restaurants, and one of them declared in all seriousness: 'It has been statistically' (!) 'demonstrated that the coffee at the Garten von Schönbrunnen is the best.' At this point a NATIVE cried: 'Our Bohemia's a pretty big place and it's done big things. Its Pilsner beer goes to every country in the world; Salzmann, the big brewer, has got a branch in Paris now, and it goes to America as well! A pity we can't also supply them with our big natural rock cellars, for they're part and parcel of Pilsner!'

Now that I've imparted to you the insights I have just gained with regard to the bustle of the world in nuce here are some of my travelling experiences.

In London, a crafty-looking little Jew with a small box under his arm climbed into our carriage with great haste. Shortly before we got to Harwich, he started looking for keys with which to open his box in order to see, as he said, whether his office-boy had packed the clothes he needed. 'For, while I was at the office,' he continued, 'I got a telegram from my brother in Berlin telling me to leave for Berlin immediately, so I sent the boy to my house to fetch the stuff I needed.' After searching here, there and everywhere, he at last found admittedly not the right key, but nevertheless a key that opened the box, only to discover that trousers and coat didn't match and that nightshirts, top-coat, etc., were missing. On the ship the little Jew poured out his heart to me. 'Such double-dealing! The world's never seen the like of it,' he cried, over and over again. This was his story: A German Yankee by the name of Born- or Bernstein, recommended to him by his Berlin friend Neumann, had done him out of £1,700—him, who passed for one of the cleverest traders! This laddie, ostensibly engaged in the African trade, showed him invoices for goods worth many thousands of pounds which he had bought from leading houses in Bradford and Manchester; the ship they were in was berthed at Southampton. At this he gave him the advance he had asked for. But hearing nothing more from the man, he grew anxious and wrote to Manchester and Bradford. He even showed me the replies he received saying that Börnstein had taken samples and purchased goods from them, but payment was to be made only on receipt of the goods; the invoices were just a formality; goods never received. In Southampton they were placed under distraint and the discovery made that B.'s shipment consisted merely of bales stuffed with straw matresses. Our little Jew who was incensed, not only about the £1,700, but above all by the fact that such a cunning trader should have let himself be taken in, wrote to his friend Neumann and to his brother in Berlin. The latter informed him by telegraph that B. had been located in Berlin, that the police had been notified and were keeping an eye on him, and that he must set off for Berlin without delay. 'Do you intend,' I asked, 'to hand the man over to the law?' 'Not on your life. I aim to get the money off him.' I: 'He'll have squandered it.' He: 'Not on your life! In the City, I tell yer, he did the fellers' (at this point he listed all manner of blokes) 'out of £12,000. It's me he's got to pay. The others will have to nab 'im where they can.' But the really choice part was that, when we arrived at Rotterdam, it was discovered that he couldn't travel beyond Minden where he would have to wait until 11 o'clock the following morning before continuing his journey. The fellow cursed the RAILWAY ADMINISTRATION like mad. All to no purpose.

We had a curious passenger on board—a corpse. His attendant was a red-haired German; he told me the dead man was called Nassauer, a young fellow of 34 from Mainz, on a trip to London, run over, his family wanted him buried at home. The dead man's escort, too, was unable to continue his journey straight away. The ship's captain told him they couldn't hand over the corpse until he had completed certain formalities with the German consul.

Between Cologne and Frankfurt (I travelled straight through) a Catholic priest of worldly mien got in. From his conversation with others I gathered that he was on his way back to Frankfurt, his home, from Dublin where he had attended O'Connell's centenary. He had plenty to say for himself. At Koblenz, where the carriages were changed, I found myself tëte-à-tête with him in the carriage. He had come by the new route via Flushing; obviously the boat was far preferable to the Harwich Dreckshuite. I tried to draw him on the subject of the Kulturkampf. But to start off with he was mistrustful and exceedingly reserved, though he spoke with much enthusiasm of Monsignore Cappele's eloquence. Eventually the Holy Ghost came to my aid. The priest pulled out a BOTTLE—it was empty; and he now told me that he had been hungry and thirsty ever since arriving in Holland. I offered him my brandy BOTTLE, a few swigs from which loosened his tongue. He now began to talk nineteen to the dozen. When passengers got in, he cracked bad jokes with them in our mother tongue, but resumed his conversation with me in English, which he speaks very well. 'So great is the freedom we enjoy in the German Empire that one has to chat about the Kulturkampf in English.' Before we got out in Frankfurt I told him—without, however, disclosing my name—that he must not be surprised if, next day, he were to read in the newspapers about yet another conspiracy between the black and the red International. At Frankfurt I learned (in the editorial office of the Frankfurter Zeitung) that my companion had been Mr Mutzelberger who acts as a kind of substitute for a Catholic bishop there. He too will have seen my name in the Frankfurter Zeitung (which he reads). It published a note about my passing through there.

Saw Sonnemann, who had just made another appearance in court for refusing to reveal a correspondent's name and had been granted a further ten days' stay of execution which, however, was to be the last. Sonnemann is a man of the world, though one can see that he is aware of his own importance. In what was a fairly long conversation he explained that his principal aim was to involve the petty bourgeoisie in the Social-Democratic movement. The financial strength of his paper lay in its being avowedly the best commercial and stock-market paper in southern Germany. He was, he said, well aware of the service his paper rendered as political retailer of the workers' press. By contrast, however, that party did nothing for him. He had, for instance, taken on Vahlteich as correspondent; but the latter had been forbidden to act as such by the Executive Committee of the united party. In the Reichstag, he said, Liebknecht's attitude was unduly demagogic; Bebel, on the other hand, was accorded the most universal acclaim, etc. I shall see him again on my return journey. I also saw Dr Guido Weiss who is spending a few days with his daughter (wife of Dr Stern, one of the editors of the Frankfurter Zeitung). Had I arrived at the office a little earlier, I would have had the misfortune to encounter Karl Mayer from Swabia (the former Beobachter man).

Incidentally, business in Frankfurt and all the other leading commercial centres is far worse than would appear from the German press.

Your friend Cafiero is living with Bakunin and he even bought the house in Lugano for him.

And now vale faveque. I must get back to business. My kindest regards to Madame Lizzy.

Your

Moor