SUGAR. 255 



is sometimes used for washing coloured sugar crystals. In 

 England we could not afford to do this. 



There is no specific difference between the manufacture of 

 colonial sugar and home refining. The distinction is one of 

 degree only, refining processes being carried a few stages 

 farther than colonial processes. A sugar refinery ! Picture 

 to the mind a large building, many stories high, having steam 

 pipes laid on throughout to keep up the temperature, and 

 over the floors of which a number of half-naked Germans are 

 sprawling about, struggling painfully, as if to overcome some 

 inevitable destiny that would stick them to the floor very 

 suggestive of birds on a limed twig. 



Feign to yourself an odour compounded of a dog-kennel, 

 and a stove over which a pan of preserves stands simmering ; 

 fill up the mental presentment with a never-ending chorus of 

 strange noises roarings like that of angry bulls, hissings, 

 splutterings, all the myriad sounds, the steam escaping from 

 imprisonment ever made or can make. Imagine a number 

 of steamship funnels let through successive floors without 

 apparent object; this all accomplished, you will have some 

 sort of notion as to what a sugar refinery is like. In a re- 

 finery, dispositions are so made that the series of operations 

 may take place from the uppermost floor downwards. To 

 this uppermost floor the sugar to be refined is raised, and there 

 turned out upon the floor like so much worthless clay. Then 

 come half -naked Germans with spades, and, exactly like nav- 

 vies on. a railway cutting, they fall to work upon the sugar 

 and turn it into an iron tank, holding water. There is 110 

 weighing of the sugar; proportions of it to water being regu- 

 lated by specific gravity of the solution. 



And now would I counsel an inquisitive"" investigator of 

 sugar-house processes to grasp his nose between thumb and 

 forefinger, and hold that organ tight. There is about to be 

 enacted the sugar refiner's great mystery a sacrifice, a true 

 blood-offering. Into the tank one of the half-naked Germans 



