KARL MARX

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240 KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHY
burden of debt has risen so much, the most necessary things have so
completely disappeared to the pawnshop that for ten days there has not
been a penny in the house.' 119
The pawnshop was an indispensable institution for the Marx household.
It was also, on one occasion, a source of discomfort: Marx tried to
pawn some of Jenny's family silver with the Argyll crest on it. The
pawnbroker considered this so suspect that he informed the police and
Marx had to spend the weekend in prison before he could establish his
bona fides. 120 In the summer of 1855 more drastic measures were required,
and Marx retired with his family to Imandt's house in Camberwell, partly
to avoid Dr Freund who was prosecuting him for non-payment of a bill;
he spent from September to December incognito with Engels in Manchester
for the same reason.
However, a closer examination of Marx's revenues gives the strong
impression that his difficulties resulted less from real poverty than from
a desire to preserve appearances, coupled with an inability to husband his
financial resources. This is certainly what one would expect from Marx's
incapacity to manage the large sums of money that he had previously
received and was again to receive in the 1860s. On his arrival in London
Marx was quite prepared to rent a flat in Chelsea that was very expensive
- more than twice the rent Marx eventually paid for a house when he
moved out of Dean Street. It was the failure of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
- Revue that finally reduced his income to nothing. He put a lot of his
own money into the production of this journal, got virtually none of it
back, and in October 1850 was obliged to ask Weydemeyer to sell all the
silver (apart from a few items belonging to little Jenny) that his wife had
pawned a year previously in order to buy her ticket to Paris. Luckily he
had some generous friends and a simple calculation seems to show that
in the year previous to the arrival of the first cheque from the New York
Daily Tribune - presumably the year in which his income was at its lowest
- Marx received at least £150 in gifts. (Since this is only the money
mentioned in surviving correspondence the total sum was probably considerably
more). It came from various sources: Engels, and Marx's Cologne
friends through Daniels, were the chief contributors; Weerth and Lassalle
also gave sums; one of Jenny's cousins sent Marx £15; and Freiligrath
gave Marx £30 which he had obtained on the pretence of 'urgent party
needs' 121 from 'some friends who willingly aid our cause'. Marx was
insistent that this help should come only from his close friends. As Jenny
said: 'my husband is very sensitive in these matters and would sooner
sacrifice his last penny than be compelled to take to democratic beggary'.
122 Indeed, he even refused Lassalle's offer to open a public subscription
to publish his work on economics. In the early 1850s the cost of