The Republican journal., 1873-05-01
SUGAR..

Eli Perkins has been on a tour through
the sugar refneries, and gives in the Daily
Graphic a column and u half account of
the observations he took there. Enormous
quantities OF the article are consumed, but
few ever stop to think, and fewer still
know, OF the rather unsavory process it
goes through in refining. Mr.. Perkins
information Is interesting as well as use
full, and if it should lead any one to be a
little more abStemious in his sugar diet. it
will serve good purpose.
OF the fifty sugar retineries in this coun-
try, thirty-five are in New York. The
largest one in the world is in Paris; the
next larger is that OF Havemeyer & Elder
OF New York, where 5000 barrels per
day are refined. 1t comes here in a raw
state, in hogsheads and bags, from Cuba
and the West Indies, and some other
ports. 1t doesn't reach New York in a
remarkably neat and appetizing condition,
being filled, according to Mr.. Perkins,
with dirt, mud, sticks, niggers shoes,
old hats, pipes, bones, newspapers, and
sleeveless shirts; and all these ingredients
are turned with the sugar into a copper
vat OF hot water, and the whole mass is
stirred up by men not over particular to
expectorate their tobacco Juice on the out
side OF the vat. Four hundred hoesheads
per day of this saccharine filth are pumped
into the fifth story to be purified. 1t is
there received in one thousand gallon
cauldrons with a steam pipe in the bot
tom. Then it is tested with blue litmus
paper to show if it be sour; if sour. a
pail of lime is thrown in This kills the
acid, OF the acid leaves the sugar to attack
ha ho
they are both eaten up" Then five gal
Ions of warm bullocks' blood. right from
the slaughter houses, is added to each
1000 gallons Of melted sugar. The whites
Of eggs, which would he better, are too
expensive. The blood, which contains
about as much albumen, is only eleven
cents per gallon. This settles sugar as
an egg settles cotfee-that is, the albumen
seizes hold of every particle of dirt and
holds it. When the temperature is raised
to $50 degrees, the blood, lime, dirt,
sticks, etc, float to the surface, while the
transparent syrup is drawn off through
strainers, from the bottom, leaving the
scum on top. This is rinsed with water,
the sweet part saved to wet up fresh lot
of sugar, and the dirt carried off as ferti-
lizer. ton of rich manure is taken out of
the sugar every day. Think of that, q CON
fectionery-suckers and sugar-eaters! After
the syrup is strained it is SO per cent
pure sugar and per cent. of coloring,
foreign salts, and gases. These are re-
moved by tiltering the syrup through bone
black or animal charcoal-burnt bones
ground up. This filtering is done through
large iron tanks, each containing $4,000
pounds of bone black. The syrup trickles
through this and comes out at the bottom
as pure and transparent as rock crystal
After it had reached this stage, Mr. Per-
kins asked the chemist if ii was perfectly
puIe now? He replied:
eyes, as near as possible. 1t is 80 ~ per
cent. pure sugar. You might pour five gallons
OF kerosene, and smallpox patient cut into
sausage meat into that first tank, and | tell
you, Perkins, that | wouldn't have the slight
est objection to drinking the syrup five hours
afterwards. 1t is perfectly clean and pure"
The syrup is then boiled down to q
paste and then drawn off into pots shaped
like the oldtashioned sugar-loat, where
it crystallizes. The soiled sugar-loaves
are crushed into loafs. and the sawdust
and leavings are made into graduated
and pulverized sugar. Brown sugar and
yellow sugar result from an inferior syrup,
sour and salt which cannot be crystallized.
"Brown sugar is simply sugar with dirt
and water in it. The cheapest sugar to
buy is white, graduated sugar This is
80 IL per cent. pure sugar, while brown
sugar is only about 20 per cent.-20 per
cent water and 10 per cent dirt and salts"
Or that is the condition before it leaves
the retiners-the "99 IL per cent. Of pure
sugar. is before it gets into the hands of
dealers, who rapidly reduce this to a
much smaller per cent.