It will be seen from the foregoing facts and
considerations that the sweetening power of any
sample, of sugar depends on the quantity of
absolutely pure cane sugar it contains. The
ordinary brown sugars, contain, according to
quality (not always price), from eighty three to
ninety six per cent of pure sugar, the remainder
consisting of water, fragments of cane fibre,
grape sugar, and a small quantity of a vegetable
substance resembling white of egg in nature,
and which is the food of disgusting little insects
which literally swarm in some samples of sugar,
and can frequently be  distinguished without
difficulty by the naked eye. ln some kinds of
moist sugar the impurities occur in such
quantity as not only to destroy its flavour but to
render it unwholesome. The cheaper kinds of
lump sugar are in all cases purer than
brown sugars and  lump-sugar, from its form, offers far
less opportunity for adulteration, an advantage
which belongs also to the soft sugar that is
crystalline in its texture, and not so moist as to clot
into brown lumps.

Sugar is not only a condiment; it is a most
important article of diet, and aid to digestion.
Though the use of sugar as an article of food
seems mainly to supply the carbon used in
breathing, yet it undoubtedly contributes also
to the production of fat, for during the severe
labour of gathering the sugar crop in the West
Indies, in spite of the great exertion and
fatigues, it is said that every negro on the plantation,
every animal, even the very dogs, will fatten.

The conversion of starch into grape sugar also
appears to be the first step in its digestion;
and it is  probable that the greater difficulty with
which cellulose is converted into sugar is the
cause of its indigestibility and uselessness as
an article of food. Sugar also plays an
important part in many processes of the animal
system, and appears to be necessary to the
production of bile. It has been detected by Lehman
and Bernard in the blood of man, and in
that of the cat, dog, and ox. Sugar also is
supposed to be necessary to the process of
incubation, where by its peculiar solvent action on
the lime and phosphate of lime of the shell it is
thought to assist in the formation of the bones
of the chick, and though this idea has not yet
been demonstrated, it appears highly probable,
from the general occurrence of sugar in the egg.
As an instance of the marvellous processes going
forward in the human frame, I may mention that
in the terrible disease called diabetes all the
amylaceous food converted into sugar, instead of
being assimilated by the system, as in health,
passes away, the sufferer thus deriving no
benefit from the food.

Sugar lies under a ban for injuring the teeth.
"What shall we say of this? The negroes
employed on sugar plantations, who eat, perhaps,
more sugar than any class of people, have almost
proverbially fine white sound teeth, which they
retain in old age. But on the other hand, in
England, persons employed in the sugar refineries,
who are from their occupation obliged constantly
tasting sugar, lose their teeth from decay
after a few years. A strong solution of pure
sugar appears to have no action on teeth after
extraction, even after many months, and even
when already decayed the action on them is
scarcely perceptible. But sugar, in combination
with a small amount of lime, or alkali, has the
property of dissolving phosphate of lime, a salt
which is contained in large quantities by the
bones and teeth; a circumstance which may
explain in some measure the contradictory nature
of the facts. Thus the inferior varieties of sugar
and treacle, which always contain lime derived
from the process of manufacture, and many
kinds of confectionary into which lime enters as
an ingredient, would be expected to have an
injurious action on the teeth, especially if there
should be a break anywhere in the outer coating
of enamel. On the other hand, fresh honey and
fruits, which contain a large percentage of
sugar, but in which it is not likely to occur with
lime in combination, are so far above suspicion,
that some fruits—as strawberries, plums, &c.—
which contain much sugar, have even been
recommended as aids to the securing of good
teeth.

CHINESE SLAVES ADRIFT.

A BIT of muddy sand, a bluff point covered
with trees of a real English green, a handsome
pagoda, and at the foot of it a single house with
a yard, inscribed by hands of departed Englishmen
as the bowling green of her Majesty's brig
Acorn, are the notable features of the Pagoda
anchorage, twelve miles below Foo chow foo, in
the river Min. Round the bluff is a creek,
with paddy fields on one side, and on the other
a muddy cliff. On the cliff is the establishment
of Messrs.Yeh sin (pronounced by the
sailors Yellow Sam), general dealers in all things
that ships may want. Hither I had come in
the Queen, coasting steamer carrying the
mail, which rode at anchor under the pagoda,
in company with some fast sailing American
and Aberdeen tea-clippers, and two or three
opium receiving ships. Climbing the hill, I
found on its top an American surgeon, serving
as the bar-keeper, and residing there with no
comrades but the Chinamen, or, as he called
them, the long tailed Ching-a-ring-tingus. The
place, he said, was right enough as long as there
were no typhoons. He'd been in one, and if
there came another, he should not stop for a
third. " I just saved my books and ran up the
hill, when up came my house after me, and had
nearly caught me, when it all went to smash just
here. You belong to the Queen?"

"Yes; we start for Amoy to-morrow."

"And the mail closes tonight. I'm off."

And off he went, as if he had another house
tumbling up at his heels.

Next day we were to start for our run down
the coast. When the steam was blowing
off and the anchor  away, boats sped to us in
crowds. Small sampans and large row boats
clustered alongside, holding on to the last