The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1905-04-24
From the London Globe.

NEW other commodities possess a
4" larger photography than sugar.
Nevertheless, the early history
of sugar is wrapped in obscurity. For
merly chemists called everything "su-
gar" which had a sweet taste, but the
term In its scientific sense soon came to
be restricted to the sweet principles in
vegetables and animal juices. Only one
of these, cane sugar, was known as
pure substance until 1919, when an Ital-
ian chemist isolated the sugar of milk
and proved its individuality The orig
inal habitat of the sugar cane is not
known, but 1t seems to have been first
cultivated in China and to have extend
ed thence to India and Arabia at COM
paratively late date. Sugar is not men,
toned by either Grecian or Roman
writers until the time of Nero, and su-
gar candy was the first and only species
known to the European ancients 1t
was the original manufacture of the
east, particularly China, and found its
way into Europe, as raw sugars did in
after ages, by way of India, Arabia and
the Red sea. Sugar when first introduced
into every country was used only medici-
nally. Almost all physicians, commence
ing with the Arab leeches, employed It
originally to render unpleasant and nau-
seating medicines grateful to the sick,
and recommended it in complaints of the
chest and lungs. But the use of sugar
in syrups and preserves came later while
barely three centuries have elapsed since
It became an ingredient in the popular
diet of Europe
The Venetians were the fathers of the
European sugar trade Anterior to the
year 114S they both imported considerable
quantities of sugar from India and plant
ed the cane In the island of Sicily. With
the produce of this island and the Indian
imports the Venetians carried on
great trade and supplied all the markets
of Europe with this commodity. How
ever, the exact date when sugar was
first introduced into England is difficult
to ascertain. One of the earliest refer
ences to sugar in England is that of 10O,-
600 pounds of sugar being shipped to
London, in 1919, by one Loredanao, a mer-
chant of Venice to be exchanged for
wool. In the same year there appears
in the accounts OF the chamberlain of
Scotland a payment at the rate of Is 91ad
per pound for sugar. Writing in 1880,
Chaucer mentions the sweetness of SUI
gar allegorically.
The art of refining sugar and making
what is called loaf sugar was invented
by Venetian citizen toward the end of
the fifteenth century. This same art
was first practiced in England in 1914,
the adventures being Thomas Gardiner
and Sir William Chester. assisted by
three Venetians. They were proprietors
of the only two sugar houses in Eng
land, but the profits arising from this
concern were at first small, as the SUI
gar refiners at Antwerp could supply the
London market cheaper. Eventually war
stopped the intercourse between London
and Antwerp, and these two houses sup
piled all England for a space of twenty
years and greatly enriched the propri-
etors, whose success induced many 9TH
ers to embark in the same trade. In
1886 Sir Thomas Mildamy tried to create
a sugar trust. On the pretext that frauds
were practlced in refining sugar, he pc
titioned Elizabeth to grant him license