Morning journal and courier., 1880-01-13

The United States revenue authorities know
 of about 10, 900 places where liquor is sold in
 New York city. The excise commissioners
 license between 5000 and G, ,OO0, the rest are
 unlicensed. Rev. Dr. Howard Crosby says
 the temperance workers have got through try
 ing to do anything under the present law and
 are going to the Legislature for better one
 He says the trouble is more with the judges
 than with the police, as a policeman who
 swears to violation of the law generally gets
 scolded from the bench, while the defendant
 gets abundant people to testify to his good
 character. Dr. Crosby says his society for the
 prevention of crime has no cause to complain
 of the manner in which the police cooperate
 with them.
 The new Beacon street of Boston is aristo
 cratic, and residents in it have fine houses,
 good society and beautiful water view, but they are in constant danger of diphtheria and other malarial diseases. The Back Bay is fllsd-in land. Its drainage is defective, and disease turks in the air and in the soil. The
 beautiful daughter of Mayor Prince, whose residence is well down on Beacon street. died recently of malignant diphtheria Next the
 eldest son was attacked with it, and was re-
 moved from this ane-looking neighborhood
 to the City Hospital. On the following day
 another sen came down with the disease, and
 also went to the hospital ''Many of Boston's
 fairsst daughters and bravest sons," writes a
 correspondent, ''have been done to the death
 by the pestilential air of their grand homes"
 Tho year 1879, contrary to expectation,
 proves to have witnessed the winding up of
 more railroad companies than any previous
 year, and more than twice as many as the record showed for 1876. Sixty-five roads, representing nominal investment-besides large amount of unpaid interest and debts-of $243, 900. 900, have been sold under fore closure during 1879. About one-third of this represents capital stock which in most cases has bsen entirely wiped out by this process, while the bonded debt has undergone very severe scaling down. Large as is the number of these sales, however, the average amount involved is only about $3, 75O, 900 per road, against nearly $6. 800, 900 in 1878, which in. dicates that 1t is mainly the smaller com panies that have been passing through the fire of late. The record of receivers appointed is much more encouraging. The number has gone down from 42 in 1876 to last year; the mileage of the roads involved has decreased from 1862 to 657, and the capital invested from $167, ,O00, 900 to $22, 200, GOO During the year 1880 8 considerable number of roads will be sold-notably the Atlantic and Great Western. representing about $1o5, ,Ooo, 900 alona-but very few new foreclosure suits have been commenced. and the greatly inn proved condition of business gives reason to hope that railway investments will hereafter be fairly remunerative
 In view of the controversy about the alleged diamonds which MT. MacTear Cor MacLear) has been making at Glasgow, part of the text of MT. Maskelyne's criticisms on them is itively that the particles of Mir. MacTear's diamonds did asOt scratch either topaz or a and that the diamonds are not dia- monds. He then goes on to say:
 Not content with merely proving what these cry ystalllne particles are not, made an expsr- lment to determine something about what @AAoy times with ammonium fluoride they became visibly more minute, and slight reddish white incrustation was seen on the foil. At the suggestion of Dr. Flight, assistant in this departme ent, master in the craft of the chem lcsl analyst these little particles were left for the night in hydro1uoric acid in a platinum capsule. This morning they have disap- peared, having become dissolved in the acid, and on evaporation there is seen slight white lncrustation on the capsule of the residuary auoride. have, therefore, no hesitation in Mir. MacTear's diamonds not only not to be diamonds at all, but to consist of some crystallizsd silicate, possibly one resem bling an augite, though it would be very rash to assert anything beyond the fact that they consist of compound of silica, possibly of more than one such compound. The prob lem of the permutation of carbon from it's ordinary opaque black condition into that in which it occurs in nature as the limpid crys- tai of diamond, is still unsolved. That it will be solved no scientific mind can doubt, though the conditions necessary may prove to be very difficult to fulfill. It is possible that carbon, like metallic arsenic, passes directly into the condition of vapor from that of solid, and that the condition for it's sublima- tion in the form of crystals, or it's cooling into crystal diamond from the liquid state is one involving combination of high tempera- ture and high pressure present in the depths of the earths crust, but very difficult to es tablish in 8 laboratory experiment..
 The man who has succeeded or may suc- ,eed in making diamonds would not be very to tell of it as long as diamonds have their present value.