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SUFFRAGE
1844
SUGAR

upon such laws as may be submitted to the people. In most countries suffrage is restricted to males above the age of 21. Other requirements that are practically universal are citizenship and a certain term of residence in the state or electorate in which one votes. In the United States the suffrage is granted and controlled by the states, and not by the Federal government. The consequence is a diversity of requirements for the suffrage. The idea that the suffrage is one of the natural rights of man would find its logical conclusion in universal adult suffrage, such as is enjoyed in New South Wales and New Zealand; or at least in universal manhood suffrage. In most of our own states (see Women's Rights) the suffrage is restricted by the exclusion of women, criminals, idiots, illiterates and sometimes other classes. A property qualification is now seldom required. Previous to the Civil War most of the states had adult manhood suffrage, negroes excluded. By the fifteenth amendment to the constitution the states are forbidden to abridge suffrage “on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.” Other conditions have been imposed, however, by some of the states by which negroes in those states are for the most part now disfranchised. In North Carolina and Louisiana all whose fathers and grandfathers enjoyed the suffrage in 1867 may enjoy it without regard to other qualifications. Some of the southern states have used educational tests after the fashion of Massachusetts and Connecticut, chiefly in order to disfranchise the ignorant element among the negroes.

Suffren′, Pierre Andre de, a French naval hero, was born at Saint-Cannat, July 17, 1726. He entered the navy when only 14, was captured but soon released, and served six years with the Knights of Malta. He was with the fleet blockading Gibraltar, and in command of five ships sailed to Madras, where he was in two or three battles, and conquered Trincomalee (1782). He was made vice-admiral of France on his return to Paris, where he was received with the greatest honors. He is called “one of the most dangerous enemies the English fleet has ever known, and, without exception, the most illustrious officer that has ever held command in the French navy.” He died at Paris, Dec. 8, 1788. See Studies in Naval History by Laughton.

Sugar, the name of a great number of substances which have a certain chemical composition and are soluble in water. The sugar of commerce, however, is chiefly derived from sugar-cane and sugar-beet, the latter supplying nearly two thirds of the sugar used by the world. In these and other plants the sugar is an essential food, and is manufactured out of raw materials by green plants.

The sugar-cane (Saccharum officinarium) is thought to have originated in India, but it is not known wild. In the United States sugar-cane is most extensively cultivated in Louisiana, but it also is an important industry in Florida and Texas, and is cultivated to some extent in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Cuba and Hawaii also are great centers of the sugar-cane industry. Sugar is extracted from cane by milling or by diffusion. The first method is more used, diffusion being confined almost wholly to sugar from beets. Mills handle from 200 to 1,400 tons of cane a day, and extract 90 to 95 per cent. of its sugar. The cane, cut or shredded before reaching the mill, is crushed, watered and crushed again. Watering the cane increased the quantity of sugar extracted by the second crushing, the increase being four or six pounds of sugar for each ton of cane. The sugar-juice extracted is next clarified and impurities removed. This is done by defecation, carbonation or superheating. Each process uses chemicals, as lime, sulphur or others; heat; settling; and filtering. Defecation consists in straining the juice through copper-wire gauze, drawing it into a tank, and, in case sulphur is used, mixing it thoroughly with sulphur dioxide. From the tank the juice is drawn into clarifiers of 2,000 to 6,000 gallons, where it is neutralized by milk of lime and heated almost to boiling. Some impurities rise, and others sink, but both are removed and the clear juice is drawn off and filtered. The liquid is then concentrated to such a density that the sugar crystallizes. This is accomplished in up-to-date factories by vacuum-appa-