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I will show it to you some day, when we go down to see the docks, as it is close by the railway. It is a huge, tall building, with eight or nine floors, one above another, with high chimneys, and the constant puff of a steam-engine. But let us see what is doing inside.

"You would be astonished at the great number and vast size of the tanks, filters, and machinery which you would see; but I will not give you a dry description of them, for you would scarcely understand it, and you will learn more in five minutes' seeing than in half a book of narrative. And besides, our object now is rather with the trouble than with all the science of the refiner. You would be amused at one thing though, to see the broad floors covered ankle deep with sugar, and men shovelling it into tanks with large wooden shovels.

"That, by the by, is the first thing that is done. Brown sugar is in reality a mixture of purely white crystals, each of which, however small, is covered with a coating of different coloring matters; and the great object is to get rid of them, that the white crystals may be made into loaves, or lump sugar. So the men with their wooden spades are hard at work pitching the sugar into a tank with water in it to make a strong syrup. But water is not the only thing there. Lime and bullock's blood are also put in; and the whole horrid mess, heated by steam, begins to bubble up in such a way as to take away thoughts of jam and the sugar-basin for some time after. You will wonder at these things; but there is a great use in them. The lime takes down a great deal of the coloring

impurities to the bottom of the tank, where they become mixed with the blood; and when the whole begins to boil, it all rises to the top in a scum, and is all removed, leaving a strong syrup behind. So that after all the spice,' as this disgusting-looking stuff is called, does not get into the sugar; but the idea is still not easy to get rid of.

"It has now to be filtered, and is drawn off into a set of large pillow-case looking bags, which are very cleverly contrived, and which give it forth perfectly bright and clear, but of a color very like port wine. Trouble upon trouble! When shall we get our white sugar? We had it straw-colored, then brown, then spiced,' and now like port wine. We must, at any rate, get rid of this color; and how do you think it is done? But you would never guess.

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It is filtered a second time, through a charcoal of bones burnt black and ground into powder. Common charcoal is made, as you know, of wood; this is made of animals' bones. Immense round iron cisterns are packed with this black powder, and the syrup suffered to pass through. The effect is very curious. It flows into the cisterns, as I have said, like port wine; it comes forth as clear and colorless as water.

"All this seems very disheartening. I am sure we have had trouble enough with this cane juice; and, after all, what have we now got-just sugar and water! What is to be done next? We must get rid of the water. You guess how that is done. You boil it, until it goes off into steam, and only leaves pure sugar syrup, which may be made into loaves as it cools. I should

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never have done if I told you how this boiling was managed; and I will get you to take my word, that it is the most difficult thing of all, and requires the best workmen and the highest skill; and that the great 'pan' which does it through the air-pump and steam, is one of the most ingenious of modern inventions, but requires the utmost nicety in the using.

"The syrup is now drawn off, and poured into moulds, and as it cools is formed into rough, darkish loaves of sugar. There is still a great deal more to be done. You see it has become discolored again. Every loaf has therefore to be washed, or have a mixture of sugar and water forced through it; and 'liquored,'—that is, have more liquid sugar passed through it; and faced, or be ground into a smooth and proper shape: but it would be tedious to go through all these, and we will now suppose the sugar as clear, white, and glittering as you now see it on the table.

"But though the sugar is now ready for Harriet's use, it is very provoking, Harriet cannot get it. Mr. Smith, the refiner, does not part with it by the pound, or by the loaf; but by hundreds or thousands of loaves, and that would not suit her, or her cupboards either. He sells by what is called wholesale; and there is a person styled a wholesale grocer ready at hand to purchase. So the sugar is bought, and packed, and carted, and laid up in large warehouses belonging to him; but there it may remain for ever, for any good it is to you or I. It is as bad for us there, as at the refiner's.

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