APPENDIX. 363 



and different districts vary considerably in this respect. August 

 and September are tlie months for gathering and curing. The 

 bunches are picked and spread out to dry on little terraces of 

 smoothly compacted earth, sloping toward the west, so as to get 

 the full effect of the afternoon sun. They remain here six or 

 eight days, according to the weather, when they become much 

 dried and shrivelled ; they are then stripped from the stems, and 

 after a further exposure of two or three days, are sufficiently dried 

 to be packed. They are then put into bags and transported to the 

 nearest shipping point, where they are generally sold to the ex- 

 port merchants, and thrown into large piles in their warehouses, 

 from which they are from time to time packed in barrels and 

 shipped as required. Grocers who have seen how closely cuiTants 

 are packed in the barrel might think that it had been done by 

 hydraulic pressure. In point of fact, however, it is done by 

 men's feet. A man gets into an empty barrel, while another 

 shovels in the currants, the first distributing them and treading 

 them with his bare feet, pressing them and working them in very 

 compactly, and gradually rising until the barrel is full. This cer- 

 tainly does not seem the cleanliest method in the world, but during 

 my travels I have seen dirty operatives wading in the syrup fj-om 

 which the sugar is made. Chinamen treading tea into the chests 

 with their feet, currants packed into barrels by the feet, and 

 macaroni-dough kneaded with the feet ; and I have finally been 

 forced to accept the idea that the man who said " we were bound 

 to eat our peck of dirt anyway" had a deep insight not only into 

 human nature, but also into the various processes by which the food 

 is prepared with which the human body is sustained and nour- 

 ished. For myself, I prefer processes of manufacture which are 

 less suggestive than those which I have mentioned, and so far as 

 my influence in the trade extends, it will always be thrown in 

 favor of cleanliness in the preparation of food products. 



Of course the above-described methods of curing and pre- 

 paring currants also leave a wide scope for care and cleanliness. 

 Being dried on the ground, more or less stone and gritty matter 

 is apt to become incorporated vsdth the currants, varying, of 

 course, with the nature of the drying-ground and the care exer- 

 cised in their manipulation. This has a considerable influence 



