Letter to Friedrich Engels, May 13, 1865

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To Engels in Manchester

[London,] 13 May 1865

Dear Fred,

The £5 received with thanks. Will be invested as suggested.

You are right about the Committee in Manchester.

Quoad E. Jones, it is necessary to march with him for the time being. He and his people will be figuring at the next Manchester Conference (next Tuesday) together with our delegates (Odger and Cremer on the part of the International Association), Howell as secretary of the Reform League (Bricklayer, one of the members of our Council) and Beales and Mason Jones as bourgeois representatives of the same League.

Without us this Reform League would never have come into existence, or else it would have fallen into the hands of the middleclass. The glorious failure of Baines’s Bill (which will result in a change of Ministry and the coming in of the Tories), originally supported by the Government, which wanted some such small measure for the hustings, occurred in the Lower House itself with direct reference to the ‘extravagant’ demands recently put up by the working class (i.e. our men).

As Dronke wrote me, Reinach I, who is now Managing Director of the Bank of Switzerland, will be ruthlessly putting an end to the office in London, which is causing nothing but expenses. Reinach I is, of course, not bound by the same political and personal considerations as Fazy and Klapka were.

A ghastly carbuncle has broken out again on my left hip, near the inexpressible part of the body.

Regards to Mrs Lizzy.

Salut.

Your
K. M.

Apropos. Monsieur Le Lubez, who had miscalculated about how important and dangerous he is, wants now to return to the Central Council in the capacity of a representative ‘for Greenwich'! We replied that d'abord we had to wait for certain letters to come, which he had written to France at the time of the conflict.

I hardly think the Social-Demokrat will see out another quarter. Moses believed himself safely ensconced and didn’t want to give up his prestigious position as Lassalle’s really secret agent at any price. Le pauvre diable!

Lassalle’s will is now proven. He has left nothing to B. Becker apart from his ‘nomination’, accompanied by rules of conduct dictated ‘with all severity and authority’.