A LONDON INTERLUDE 97
Der Spiegel nicht an meiner Leiche modern,
Der heil'ge Geist der Wahrheit sagt es mir.Weitling departed by boat for England in the summer of 1844.
His heart must have beat faster as his ship approached the shores of
the island kingdom, for he was familiar with the main events in the
history of the British working class and he had been greatly in
terested in the English Industrial Revolution. In May, 1842, the
lead article in his Junge Generation had dealt with "Progress in
the Social Systems in England." It carried a tribute to Robert
Owen, "father of English Communists," and pointed with pride to
England's sixty-five "communist associations," each of which had
a "Social Hall" where their members met each Sunday evening
in a spirit of equality and brotherly love, to sing songs and to dis
course on communism and the labor movement. Other issues of
Weitling's paper printed extracts from letters and reports from the
German Democratic Society of London, bearing the signatures of
old associates like Schapper, Bauer, and Moll and describing the
proceedings of the London group as a model to be followed by
workers in other countries. At the same time there were occasional
caustic references to the class system in English society, where
hunting dogs got more meat than workers and children toiled nine
teen hours a day in the factories.
Weitling's name, as already suggested, was known in England
before he arrived. Goodwyn Barmby, founder of the Universal
Communitarian Society, was the editor of a paper published in
London, first as the Promethean and then as the Communist
Chronicle. Bronson Alcott was one of his American correspond
ents, and Ralph Waldo Emerson the contributor of an essay on
communism and individualism. In that strange monthly the name
of the German communist had appeared rather frequently. A let
ter from Lausanne, published in the Communist Chronicle, re
ported the progress of workers' libraries in Switzerland and called
attention to Weitling's Garantieen; other issues printed extracts
from the "Select Scriptures" of the philosophical tailor, recounted