12 TlMEHRI, 
the clarifiers, now rise to the surface in the shape of skum 
and are removed. This as a rule finishes the cleaning 
process, the subsequent processes are chiefly evaporative. 
There are some who advocate filtering the juice after 
leaving the eliminators and before it enters the concen- 
trators, but this is rarely, if ever, done. 
Before visiting the evaporators let us see what has be- 
come of the subsidings and skimmings. Twenty years 
ago these would have gone into coolers, and then have 
been sent to the distillery and turned into rum, and when 
rum was selling at a very good price this was the best 
way of disposing of them. The buyer of rum does not 
want alcohol or any physicky stuff, he wants something 
nice to drink, and there can be no doubt that skimmings. 
undo£tored with chemicals, does make a delightful spirit, 
delicately flavoured with the distinctive aroma of the 
sugar cane, as anyone who has ever visited Jamaica can 
testify — something very different to the coarse fiery stuff, 
which we turn out from the refuse of our sugar factories. 
John Girder in ( The Bride of Lammermoor' says, "and 
if there is anything totally uneatable, let it be given to 
the puir folk.'' And w r e say if there is anything that can- 
not possibly yield any sugar, send it to the distillery. 
We subside our skimmings and then pass the refuse 
through the filter presses, and sometimes wash the cake 
by passing water through it so as to exhaust every possible 
particle of sugar. We re-boil our molasses at least once, 
and are then surprised that our rum has not a good name. 
We set up a mixture of dirt from the filter presses from 
which nearly every atom of sugar has been extracted, 
trench water, and molasses which has been heavily limed 
and re-boiled so as to be as poor as it can possibly be. We 
