BEETROOT SUGAR IN FRANCE. 



A CERTAIN animated controversy arises from time to time 

 about the profitable manufacture of sugar from English- 

 grown beet. The profit-and-loss question would not constitute 

 a matter of pleasant reading. The Mincing-lane gentleman 

 who has planted certain broad acres with Silesian beet, with 

 the intent of ultimate sugar -extraction therefrom, will, in 

 course of due time, tot-up his nett profits or losses, as the case 

 may be, thus removing the topic from the domains of contro- 

 versy. Another aspect of beetroot-sugar manufacture claims 

 our present regards : I will review it as one of the triumphs 

 of science, accomplished under difficulties. 



Draw on your imaginative faculty: picture to yourself 

 the desolation that would overspread the gallant and lively 

 French nation men and women alike, but especially the 

 women if wholly deprived of those little bits of sugar which, 

 under so many protean forms, they eat ; and, not content 

 with eating, drink. Rob Gallia of her sugar and her bonbons 

 atrocious ! As well rob Britannia of her plum-pudding and 

 beef. The attempt was once, however, made; and, I blush to 

 record, by us English. War is confessedly an ungentle art ; 

 but never did Bellona show herself in more ungentle guise 

 than when we strove to deprive our neighbours of their sugar. 

 The case stands thus: La grande armee made capsized skittles 

 of emperors and kings on land; but the British fleet made 

 laths and match-splints of French ships at sea. After Trafal- 

 gar, the French merchant service found itself in sore straits ; 

 French colonial trade declined almost to nothing ; for which 



