Edible Products. 



232 



[September, 1911. 



their country, and accustomed from 

 time immemorial to this mode of dis- 

 charging their liability to the State. 



The Parliamentary Commissioners (Col. 

 Colebrooke and Mr. Cameron) .deputed 

 to visit the island and make enquiry, 

 took a strong view of the subject, and 

 inter alia recommended the immediate 

 and unconditional abolition of " raja- 

 kariya" without any commutation of 

 that labour either by additional assess- 

 ment in land cr by personal or capit- 

 ation taxes." This, however, only appli- 

 ed to the liability to Government and 

 left untouched the services due by 

 occupiers (tenants) to Temples and 

 other holders of grants from the 

 native sovereigns prior to the British 

 occupation. 



The special measures already referred 

 to for the encouragement of paddy culti- 

 vation appear to have been gradually 

 dropped and more attention paid to 

 encourage other crops, regarding which 

 I found notices such as Hemp in 1812 and 

 Coffee in 1817. In 1824 a Minute by Sir 

 Edward Barnes exempted crops of coffee, 

 cotton and pepper from the general tax 

 of one-tenth they were otherwise liable 

 to, but specially notified this was not to 

 extend " to any low land applied to the 

 cultivation of paddy." The. cultivation 

 of Cinnamon, it may be remarked in this 

 connection, was looked after by a special 

 Department which was, however,abolish- 

 ed in 1832, and the officers (who were collo- 

 quially referred to as the gardeners) were 

 incorporated in the netv Civil Service, 

 one of whom Mr. James Caulfield (ap- 

 pointed to the Department in 18Z3) even- 

 tually rose to be Treasurer of the Colony 

 and ex officio "a Deputy Paymaster- 

 General to the Queen's forces," which 

 entitled him to military honours at his 

 funeral in May, 1861. 



(To be continued.) 



RICE EXPORTS FROM SIAM. 



(Prom the Manila Bulletin.) 



Heavy Buying on Part of Japan- 

 Material Advance in Price 

 is Reported. 

 An interesting report on rice ship- 

 ments from Siam comes from the pen of 

 Consul G. Cornell Tarler, Bangkok, who 

 gives some interesting figures and state- 

 ments regarding the shipments of rice 

 and the advance in prices. 



Consul Tarler says :— 

 Exports of rice from Bangkok for the 

 firso three inouth-s of 1910 amounted to 



80,404 coyans to Hongkong and 70,020 

 coyans to Singapore. (The coyan equals 

 about 2,977 pouudi-.) Shipments for the 

 first quarter of 1911 totaled 77,984 coyans 

 to Hongkong and 00,397 coyans to Singa- 

 pore. This shows a well-sustained export- 

 ation in view of the 40 per cent, shortage 

 of the rice crop for the past season. 



I have been unable to discover any 

 advance purchases except through a few 

 firms exporting rice to Europe, and these 

 firms have yearly contracts. The Chinese 

 merchants here are following the Houg- 

 kong market, where the price of rice has 

 increased as it has here. For white rice 

 the price has advanced from about $2 04 

 a picul (133£ pounds) in November, 1910, 

 to about $2'50 in the middle of February; 

 it is now about $2 '31. In 1909 the same 

 rice paid $2 04 in October ; in the follow- 

 ing February it advanced to about $2'17. 



Local merchants have received tele- 

 graphic iufoimation from their agents 

 that Japan has been buying heavily from 

 Saigon and Burma, the rice in the latter 

 instance coming through Moulmeiu and 

 Rangoon. Siam rice is not popular with 

 the Japanese on account of the fear of 

 beri beri. 



GLUCOSE AS A FOOD STUFF. 



(From the Louisiana Planter and Sugar 

 Manufacturer, Vol. XLVII., 

 No. 20, July 1, 1911.; 



In a recent article concerning glucose, 

 published in the "New England Grocer," 

 the editor of that ordinarily very sound 

 journal and always excellent, from its 

 general points of view, makes the state- 

 ment that glucose is not an inferior 

 product, but a pure, healthful article. 

 He then goes on to describe corn glucose 

 as constituting perhaps a silver syrup in 

 contradistinction to the ordinary golden 

 syrups which are the residual part secur- 

 ed in refining cane sugars. Our friend, 

 the editor of the " New England Grocer," 

 commits, or permits, this serious error, 

 that is to compare glucose, artificially 

 prepared by boiling starch in dilute 

 sulphuric or hydrochloric acid, with that 

 material known as grape sugar, which 

 actually exudes from grapes and figs as 

 they become dry, forming as is frequently 

 seen on raisins, a white incrustation. 

 That kind cf glucose, or more properly 

 grape sugar, is formed in nature's labor- 

 atory. This is done to a greater or less 

 extent in the sugar cane, wherein the 

 glucose content is higher in immature 

 canes than in the mature ones. In 

 Nature's laboratory the translation from 

 glucose to sucrose is made by the enzyms 

 or ferments that constitute the active 



