SUGAR. 251 



subject, the beetroot-sugar manufacture ; so interesting, that 

 it shall receive a separate notice. 



Here the point is worthy of remark, that the sugar-cane 

 is the only sugar-containing plant, the fresh saccharine juice 

 of which is agreeable to the nose and palate. One would 

 find no great pleasure in munching a slice of white beetroot ; 

 but I know few gustatory dissipations more pleasant than to 

 loll in the shade under the rustling fronds of some palm, and 

 masticate a length of fresh-cut sugar-cane. 



Many of us there may be who prefer moist sugar to white 

 sugar for certain purposes, if only the moist sugar be good ; 

 and some of us may have become aware, during the past few 

 years, that good old-fashioned yellow sugars have hardly 

 been attainable. Mr. Lowe's budget will alter the state 

 of this. Yellow sugar, to be good, ought to be made from 

 cane juice direct ; but by far the largest amount of yellow 

 sugar lately attainable has not been so made. The practical 

 effect of legislation, for many years, has been to keep all 

 yellow sugar above a certain scale of purity out of the British 

 market, and to encourage the production of coarse, dark, 

 almost black sugar. This, when imported, could not well 

 be eaten in its raw state ; so it was purchased by refiners 

 not so much to make white sugar out of, that branch of the 

 trade being not very profitable. What they did was, to con- 

 vert the dark coarse muscovado into a sort of light-coloured 

 looking muscovado; pretty enough to look at, but reeking 

 of the odour of putrid blood used in refineries. If house- 

 keepers would purchase their moist sugar more by smell 

 than by taste, they would make better bargains. 



Since we are here taking a politico-commercial glance at 

 the relations of sugar, and are by no means pledged to go 

 very far into the science of it since we are chiefly con- 

 cerned in the study of sugar as the historian, the political 

 economist, the natural historian, would study it so in close 

 association the whole tale of negro slavery in America comes 



