Here were sugar-plums of many shades, every work-woman seeming to have a specialty. It was something not alone requiring alertness of hand, but constant watchfulness as to the condition of the material used. If it had been too soft, the bonbon would have run and been out of shape. If the sugar paste had been too hard, it would have been intractable. How they managed not to burn anything was a wonder. Behind all this was the care necessary in the make-up of the first materials, and in the methods employed to give the colors and the flavors. Then there was the element of time, or a succession of processes. As soon as one batch of sugar-plums was finished, the saucepans had to be filled up again. For the coloration of the sugar-plums many vegetable substances are used, and the utmost care was taken that nothing unwholesome should enter into the manufacture. Then it is, too, a nice question of flavors, for it is so easy to add too much of an essence and so spoil the bonbons. When the sugar-plum is made it must have powers of resistance. Sugar tends in some conditions to deliquescence, and so sugar-plums might all run together, and their appearance would be ruined. [Illustration: WRAPPING CARAMELS.] There were some of the smaller candies which passed through rollers, whereby the crystallized sugar was shaped into squares or lozenges. In many of the rooms workmen were manipulating great masses of amber-colored melted sugar, turning and turning them on slabs of marble or iron. Here the skill was shown in getting the mass to exactly the proper temperature so that it could be worked. A hundred or more pounds of sweet stuff had to be of just such a consistency so as to shape it. If there had been a mistake, just as likely as not the whole batch would have been spoilt, for if heated over again its character would have been changed. There was one room entirely devoted to nut-cracking. A nut, as a walnut or a pecan or a filbert, had to be cracked just so, and an old man tapped and tapped the nuts with the regularity of a machine. Then there was a corps of nut-pickers, who removed the shells and put aside the meats. Then there were several women who did nothing else but police these nuts, so as to remove the least possible fragment of shell. Just think of the horror of breaking a tooth while in the act of biting an inviting sugar-plum! All day long almonds were being blanched. Almonds are too delicate to be passed through any machine, and so have to be slivered with a knife. Here were cocoanuts in quantity. They could be run through machines, and there were great heaps of ground cocoanut looking like snow. Figs form the basis of many sugar-plums, but these have to be all handled and picked before they are ground up. Just think of not less than one hundred and fifty varieties of candies or sugar-plums, and you can appreciate how many differences there must be in the manufacture of these.