American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-06-28
About Sugar.

| 10 YOU WISH 10 KNOW all 8UOut tilc gu
gar which you eat every day-how 1t is
made in filth, shoveled over in dirt, and
howit is finally purified till it is white
| and Immaculate?
| New York has thirty-ti 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
of Havemeyer and Elder, of New York
They refine 3, 900 barrels per day.
| How does the sugar come here?
Last year the 548, 769 tons of sugar
| shipped to this country came mostly from
| Cuba, Porto Rico, Brazil, Manila, Jamaica
| San Domingo and Barbados. 1t came in
hogsheads weighing 1000 pounds, boxes
weighing $50 and bags weighing $50
pounds. A large part of it came in a
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
t6 cents and centrifugal cents per pound
Cuba sugar is the best sugar, but it all has
to be cleaned before it is 1T to use, and
! then the raw sugar WHOLESALERS for about
cents per pound more. From dirty eight
cent sugar they make white lump sugar
worth liz, light yellow worth 10J<, dark
yellow worth ~, and syrup worth 4.
How do they do this?
This is what saw for the Graphic yes
terday, in the largest sugar refinery in the
United States: a,.,.-. ,,,,,, L.,
hegshesds covered with mud, and boxes
snieared over WIN Dnge water ana .nith'
was fandeo ~ we Williamsburg JOCKS,
where you see those immense sugar
h<,.,soa Than stavoderaa carried II hack
70 big copper vat nued with not WAFER,
broke open the boxes. Cut open the bags,
ana Knocked IN the nesas OF the nogs
heads ana let II an-0Hr muo, SUCKS,
niggers shoes, old hats, pipes, bones, un-
dissolved newspapers, and sleeveless
shirts-yes, let it all side into the vat to-
gether.
What all this dart?
Yes, and more TOO. they placed the
boxes into steam vat steamed and wash
ed Oh the DIT ana sugar ana then put
that in too. Then q greasy CHAP stirred
it up occasionally expeetorating tobacco
juice here and there, and scraping his
Williamsburg mud INTO The fhturc hosting
of our weddingcake.
What nexts =
sugar and dirt are worked Oh, are sent
back to Cuba, and 10 hogsheads of sugar
and dirt per day afespumped, IN . liquid
fOm, into the fifth story, to be cleaned
and purified.
What! can they take ont hftiy oigar
stub,. dead rats, negro babies, bilge-wafer,
and eyerythines -
Yes: in five hours they draw from this
witche,' chowder syrup as pure and as
Clean. 100 All din. salts smells and
every Material obstacle or gaseous odor or
oxv1 is senarated, and transparent LIQUID
sugar r,,ns ont as water trjckles from crvs-
tsi snr;ng
How do. thew do il,
First the dirtv LIQUID is pumped into
one Thousand gallon caldrons, with a
steam pipe IN the bottom. Then, blue
litmus paper paper soaked in blue cabbage
juice is dipped into'it to see if it is sour.
If it is, sour, the blue paper is changed to
This kills the acd, or the acid leaves the
sugar to attack the lime, when, like the
Kilkenny cats, they are both eaten up. If
yon pour acid in soft soap, the alka1i
(anether fbrm of lime) will leave the
grease to feed upon the acid.
What next? :
Then the halfnahed men who work
over the hot caldrons pour five gallons OF
warm bullQcks blood, fresh from the
slaughter houses, into each /, 900 gallons of
melted sugar. The white of eggs WOULD
be better, but eggs cost too much, while
blood, which is almost o full of albumen,
only costs eleven cents Fer gallon This
blood settles the sngar as an egg "set-
ties" your coffee-thaf L. the aibumen
seizes hold OF every particle of dirt and
holds It, Then, when they raise the tenn
peraxure to ldO degrees, the blood, lime,
dirt, sticks, etc., host 70 the aufface, while
the syrup, yellow and quite Transparent,
is drawn of through sfrsinezs at the bot
tom, leaving the scum ON top. The scum
and dirt are rinsed With clean water, the
sweet paRt saved to wet up . fiesh lot of
snQnf, and the dirt carted on as afertilizer.
sre:r eyery dav.
How is the syrup strained?
Tbrc,ub no o. .lrnr cloth haos. having
f,nr or Ave thicknssees of cloth in them.
They catch ali the heavy dirt, little s.ones,
sand, ETC., and the syrup leaves them trans
parent, only slightly tinged with yellow.
These bags take out about four per cent
of dirt-real black, mucky dfrt-the same
as you see in the streets. The syrup is
now ninety-three per cent. pure sugar,
whereas it was but eighty per cent Eve
hours ago. There remains seven per cent
of cojorinp. foreign saltpr and gases vet to
be removed.
How are these salts and gases to be re-
moved?
This is done by f1teffng the yellow
syrup through bone black or animal char
coal (bones burnt black and ground up).
Large iron tanks, looking like upright
steam boilers. are Allied with n. OO() pounds
of hone black each Throrrh this the
svrup is made to trickle. As Il comes ont
- at L,,tto,,, e 10 q, 49,, .-I t-o.,>.-o..