256 SUGAE. 



throws something red, clotty, gory, a mass of tremulous 

 sanies, floating in an unhealthy, jaundiced-looking whey. 

 What's in a name ? Something, evidently believes a sugar 

 refiner, else why should he call this gory horror * spice' ? In 

 goes the spice plump ! then follow some sharp cracking 

 sounds, as if some volunteers were deep down underneath the 

 fluid, keeping up a running fire of skirmishers. Soon the 

 character of noise changes, the sharp rifle-cracking ends ; and 

 upon that there follows a dull hollow bull-like roar. Mean- 

 while a crust forms on the surface, and from time to time is 

 skimmed off; and when the skimming, the skirmishing, and 

 the roaring, have gone on long enough, a tap is turned, and 

 the liquor runs away. Such is the first process of sugar re- 

 fining. It is called ' blowing up ;' and the peculiar crackings 

 and roarings I have been endeavouring to describe are caused 

 by the passage of steam through water. 



Dr. Slare, of revered memory, attributes two especial 

 qualities to sugar, as we already know. First, he makes it 

 out to be a great f attener ; in testimony whereof consult Mr. 

 Banting. Second, he credits it with the quality of ' benigni- 

 fication,' so to speak, of those who use it. According to Dr. 

 Slare, a sugar diet is a great improver of ladies' tempers. 

 This may be so ; but if sugar really do exert a corresponding 

 influence over the tempers of men, the virtues of it are not 

 conferred by absorption. Mostly, sugar-refiners are an ill- 

 tempered race ; and I hardly ever met with one who did not 

 fall into a passion on the mere mention of the word < spice.' 



What I have yet to write must be brief. Stage the 

 second consists in filtering the ^blown-up' liquor through a 

 multiplicity of cotton bags, each like a bolster-case, sewed up 

 at one end, and then thrust into a long cabbage-net. Stage 

 the third, filtration through burnt bones, packed in those 

 steamship chimneys to which we referred. Stage the fourth, 

 vacuum boiling (a very pretty process) ; then stages five, 

 six, and others too numerous to mention here. 



