Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1873-06-26
About Sugar.

| gar which you eat every day-hOW 1t is
made in filth, shoveleo over in dirt, and
how it is finally purified till it is white
and Immaculate?
| New York has thirty-five out Of the fifty
| sugar refineries in the United States-the
other refineries being in Boston, Philadel-
phia, Baltimore and ST. Louis. The larg-
est refinery in the world is that of Con-
stance Sey, in Paris. Sey refines 5000
barrels per day. The next largest is that
of Havemeyer and Elder, of New York.
They refine 5000 barrels per day.
How does the sugar come here?
Last year the 54S,769 tons of sugar
shipped to this country came mostly from
Cuba, Porto Rico, Brazil, Manila Jamaica,
San Domingo and Barbados. It came in
hogsheads weighing 1000 pounds, boxes
weighing $50 and bags weighing $50
pounds. A large part of it came in a
black, dirty, ''raw" state, and some called
centrifugal" had the water whirled out of
it in centrifugal machines before it left
Cuba. So sugar is quoted as raw" and
centrifugal" Raw sugar is worth about
8 cents and centrifugal 8 cents per pound
Cuba sugar is the best sugar, but it all has
to be cleaned before it is fit to use, and
then the raw sugar WHOLESALERS for about
3 cents per pound more. From dirty eight
cent sugar they make white lump sugar
worth III light yellow worth 101<, dark
yellow worth 915 and syrup worth 4
How do they do this?
This is what saw for the Graphsc yes.
terday, in the largest sugar refinery in the
United States:
First, the sugar in filthy black bags,
hogsheads covered with mud and boxes
smeared over with bilge water and filth,
was landed at the Williamsburg docks,
where you see those immense sugar
houses. Then stevedores carried it back
to big copper vat filled with hot water,
| broke open the boxes, cut open the bags,
| and knocked in the heads of the hogs.
heads and let it all-dirt, mud, sticks,
niggers' shoes, old hats, pipes, bones, un-
dissolved newspapers, and sleeveless
shilts-yes, let it all slide into the vat to-
gether
What! all this dirt?
Yes and more too. They placed the
filthy old hogsheads, soiled bags and dirty
boxes into a steam vat steamed and wash
ed ok the dirt and sugar and then put
that h too. Then greasy chap stirred
1t up OCCASIONALLY expectOrating tobacco
juice hse and there, and scraping his
Williamsburg mud into the future frosting
of our 4dding-cake.
Whathext?
Well, the hogshead-staves, after the
sugar AMI dirt are worked off, are sent
back to Qba, and 400 hogsheads of sugar
and dirt nr day are pumped, in liquid
form, intdhe fifth story, to be cleaned
and purifiN
What! tn they take out filthy cigar
stubs, deadats, negro babies, bilge-water,
and everything?
Yes; in ae hours they draw from this
witches cbwder syrup as pure and as
colorless an odorless as ice-water, and as
clean, too. kAll dirt salts, smells and
every matetl obstacle or gaseous odor or
oxyd is sepRted, and transparent liquid
sugar runs dt as water trickles from crys-
tai spring.
How do thy do itg
First, the dty liquid is pumped into
one thousan gallon caldrons, with a
steam pipe il the bottom. Then, blue
Newspaper Gper soaked in blue cabbage
juice is dippe(nto it to see if it is sour.
If it is sour, thSlue paper is changed to
red. Then the,throw it in pail of lime.
This kills the ald or the acid leaves the
sugar to attack he lime, when, like the
Kilkenny cats, fy are both eaten up. If
you pour acid soft soap, the alkali
(anOther form I lime) will leave the |
grease to feed upt the acid.
What next?
Then the halfhked men who work |
over the hot caldris pour five gallons of |
warm bullock's pod, fresh from the |
slaughter houses, 10 each 900 gallons of |
melted sugar. 1hayhite of eggs would |
be better, but eggs tt too much, while |
blood, which is alnft as full of albumen,
only costs eleven ces per gallon. This |
blood Settles the STAR as an egg "set
ties" your coffee-tt is, the albumen
seizes hold of every lrticle of dirt and
holds it, Then, wheIhey raise the tenn
perature to $50 degree the blood, lime,
dirt, sticks, etc, float ahe surface, while
the syrup, yellow ana pite transparent,
is drawn of through sinners at the bot
tom, leaving the scum Atop. The scum
and dirt are rinsed wlthQean water, the
sweet part saved to wet ! fresh lot of
sugar, and the dirt cartedF as a fertilizer
They take a ton of rich nAure out of the
sugar every day.
How is the syrup strain4
Through bags-long clO4bags, having
four or five thicknesses of 9TH in them.
They catch all the heavy ditlittle stones,
sand, etc, and the syrup leaHthem trans
parent only slightly tinged 18th yellow.
These bags take out about fOl per cent.
of dirt-real black, mucky dA the same
as you see in the streets. TMsyrup is
now ninety-three per cent. Ne sugar,
whereas it was but eighty penent. five
hours ago. There remains sevA Der cent.
of coloring, foreign salts and gts yet to
be removed.
How are these salts and gases be re-
moved? {
This is done by filtering thaellow
syrup through bone black or anintchar
coal (bones burnt black and grout up)
Large iron tanks, looking like Night
steam boilers, are filled with 30, 900 Ands
of bone black each. Through thlthe I
syrup is made to trickle. As it CONDUIT I
at the bottom it is as pure and transp\nt
as rock crystal. A goblet of it look5ke
pure water.
us it perfectly pure now?" askede
chemist. 9
"Yes, as near as possible. 1t is mind
nine and half per cent. pure sugar. II ;
might pour five gallons of kerosene and /
smallpox patient cut into sausage mel :
| - AZ G,at <a,,L and 7 toll vp,, Dark intl