Men, women and children - not to mention dogs and horses - like sugar, and the taste is entirely defensible. These white crystals, this frost of honey, feed the ever-burning flame of the body, supplying animal heat, which is life, and rousing the nervous energies like phosphates, or better than phosphates in some cases. I have had brain-fag so entire that it seemed as if I never could write or had written a line, relieved by taking a syrupy small glass of eau sucrée, when shortly ideas gathered and took shape and the blank brain resumed its work. I can't help fancying that the sweets craved so ardently by children have much to do with furnishing nerve aliment to their fast-growing systems. Sugar contributes both animal heat and nervous force, and seems to be a transformation of the elements of heat, as the diamond is transformed carbon.

In the terrible retreat from Moscow, the few of Napoleon's army who secreted a few pounds of sugar to eat were enabled to support the intense cold. In tropic countries Europeans learned to drink eau sucrée before long walks as a preventive of sunstroke and paralysis, and the French Algerian troops carry sugar on their marches to enable them to withstand the desert heat. Persons with spinal inflammation and paralytic tendencies often have a craving for sweets, which is nature reaching instinctively for help, and indulgence in such cases is followed by improvement.

As much pure sugar or sweets as can be eaten without producing acidity is not only safe but beneficial for any one who craves it. Disturbance seldom follows in any ordinary case when the sweets are perfectly pure and are taken at proper times, not nibbled constantly between meals.

Confectionery is one of the perquisites of childhood, and as choice French candies are beyond the capacity of many a mother's purse, and cheap ones are often made unwholesome, if not positively dangerous, by adulteration, homemade candies have become very popular, many delicious and attractive varieties being as easily made as any other toothsome dainties. As a preventive of "graining," glucose (grape sugar or syrup) is much used in the manufacture of candy. But as it is not always convenient to procure, and often imparts a bitter flavor, the recipes here given are for the use of cream of tartar instead.

A preparation called "fondant" - made by removing boiled syrup from the fire just before it will harden - is the foundation of nearly all French candies, and when once the art of making this is mastered a large variety of candies are easily made.