SUGAE. 243 



tervention ; through an operation conducted on the coloured 

 material ordinarily known as muscovado or moist sugar. Now 

 the fact is, that sugar is generated white ; the cane and colo- 

 nial sugar-growers imparting yellowness or brownness through 

 the imperfection of their manufacture. Mr. Gladstone and 

 it did infinite credit to his sagacity was the first Chancellor 

 of the Exchequer who apprehended this circumstance fairly. 

 He was brought to see that the home refiners' object was to 

 prevent the colonial people from turning out their sugars 

 otherwise than in a very impure condition, in order that the 

 interests of home refining might not be prejudiced. 



Is sugar a necessary of life, or is it not ? Eeflecting upon 

 the enormous amount of it consumed, one might almost be 

 disposed to call it so ; and yet European people had to do the 

 best they could without it until well-nigh our own period, 

 historically speaking. Probably good Queen Bess indulged 

 in the luxury of sugar from time to time ; but we may very 

 well doubt whether her majesty consumed a portion daily. 

 Shakespeare may have tasted it one can assume he did 

 but if fond of sweets, he must have eaten a good deal more 

 honey than sugar. It was not till the reign of James I. that 

 sugar was specially mentioned in the British tariff ; and for a 

 long time subsequently the importation of it was but limited. 



At the commencement of the present century the quantity 

 of sugar imported was four million hundredweights ; it gra- 

 dually increased to about six million hundredweights towards 

 the middle of the century, and now amounts to no less than 

 eleven million hundredweights. We get it from a variety of 

 places ; the fact being that sugar-canes flourish well anywhere 

 under the conditions of good soil and a mean^ temperature of 

 76 to 77. The native land of the sugar-cane was some part 

 of Eastern Asia, probably Southern China, Cochin-China, and 

 Siam. The West-India islands and America had no sugar- 

 canes until there conveyed by the Spaniards : such, at least, 

 is the opinion of persons who have most fully and carefully 



