BRITISH AND FOREIGN HONEY WAX. 303 



The VIRTUES of honey, and the various uses of 

 wax, the staple articles of our subject, are too uni- 

 versally known to need recapitulation. It is probable, 

 however, that honey is better adapted to occasional 

 and medicinal, than general dietetic use ; and also 

 that in some constitutions it has the effect ascribed 

 to it by the ancient naturalists, of exciting melan- 

 choly. During the early attempts to abolish the 

 slave trade, it was proposed to substitute the use of 

 honey for that of sugar, which was but too truly 

 stigmatised as the blood and sweat of human beings : 

 the abolition of sugar, and of slavery, however, had 

 then equal success. Since that period of national 

 shame and disgrace, and highly to the honour of the 

 present inhabitants of our country, the infamous and 

 detestable system of human slavery in our colonies 

 is abolished. 



British honey is more solid, more apt to granulate 

 and crystallize, and generally more pure and free 

 from adulteration, than the fine Southern and Me- 

 diterranean species. The superiority of the latter, 

 which is liquid, consists in its fine fragrant flavour, 

 often scented with wild thyme and odoriferous herbs. 

 The present retail price of the Minorca, or best 

 foreign honey, in London, is two shillings and six- 

 pence per Ib. of the English, equally good perhaps 

 in essentials, two shillings. The late Dr. Reece 

 assured me, that in his experiment of distilling honey, 

 comparatively with sugar, a pound of honey yielded 

 considerably more alcohol, or spirit, than a pound of 

 sugar. 



Of WAX, the consumption is, necessarily, far 



