Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1873-06-19
About Sugar.

Do YOU wish to know all about the SUI
car which you eat every day-how it is
made in filth, shoveled 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 retineries in the United States-the
other refneries 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 3, 900 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 Barbadoes 1t came in
hogsheads weighing 1000 pounds, boxes
weighing 450 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
''centrifugaln Raw sugar is worth about
cents and centrifugal 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
cents per pound more. From dirty eight
cent sugar they make white lump sugar
worth 1115, light yellow worth 1015, dark
yellow worth 90, 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:
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
! shirts-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 off the dirt and sugar and then put
! that in too. Then a greasy chap stirred
! it up occasionally eXpectorating tobacco
! juice here and there, and scraping his
| Williamsburg mud into the future frosting
| Of our wedding-cake.
| What next?
| Well, the ho@shead-staves, after the
! sugar and dirt are worked off, are sent
| back to Cuba, and 400 hogsheads of sugar
and dirt per day are pumped, in liquid
| form, into the fifth story, TO be cleaned
and purified.
What can they take out filthy cigar
stubs, dead rats, negro babies, bilge-w water,
and everything?
Yes; in five hours they draw from this
! witches chOwder syrup as pure and as
| colorless and odorless as ice-water, and as
/ clean, too All dirt, salts, smells and
| every material obstacle or gaseous odor or
! oXyd is separated, and transparent liquid
| sugar runs out as water trickles from Crys-
| tai spring.
| How do they do it?
| First the dirty 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
red. Then they throw it in pail of lime.
/ This kills the acid, or the acid leaves the
sugar to attack the lime, when, like the
! Kilkenny cats, they are both eaten up. If
you pour acid in soft soap, the alkali
! (another form of lime) will leave the
grease to feed upon the acid.
What next?
Then the half-naked men who work
over the hot caldrons pour five gallons OF
warm bullOck's 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 as full Of albumen
only costs eleven cents per gallon This
blood "settles" the sugar as an egg "set
ties" your coff'ee-that is, the albumen
seizes hold of every particle of dirt and
holds it, Then, when they raise the tenn
perature to $50 degrees, the blood, lime,
dirt, sticks, etc, float to the surface, while
the syrup, yellow and quite transparent,
is drawn off through strainers 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 a fresh lot of
sugar, and the dirt carted off as fertilizer.
They take ton Of rich manure out of the
sugar every day.
How is the syrup strained?
Through bags-long cloth bags, having
four or five thicknesses of cloth in them
They catch all the heavy dirt, little stones,
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 dirt-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. five
hours ago. There remains seven per cent.
of coloring, foreign salts and gases yet to
be removed.
How are these salts and gases to be re
moved?
This is done by filtering 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 filled with SO, 900 pounds
of bone black each Through this the
syrup is made to trickle. As it comes out
at the bottom it is as pure and transparent
as rock crystal. A goblet of it looks like
pure water.
rs it perfectly pure now:" l asked the
chemist
'Yes, as near as possible. 1t is ninety
nine and half per cent pure sugar. You
might pour five gallons of kerosene and
smallpox patient cut into sausage meat
into that first tank, and l tell YOU, Perkins,
that | wouldn't have the slightest obiec-
ton to drinking the syrup five hours af.
terward It's perfectly clean and pure"
How is this white, transparent syrup
made into sugar.
This is simply done by taking the water.
out of it. This is accomplished by boil-
ing it in an open vacuum. 1t would boil
IL, lott OF