ALABAMA. 



words worth quoting in conclusion : " Farmers 

 would be ill advised if they allowed the press- 

 ure of present difficulties to tempt them to dab- 

 ble in revolutionary remedies, and, instead of 

 putting their shoulders to the wheel, to invoke 

 the political Hercules of the day as one who 

 has an unbounded power to reform all ills." 



FURTHER STATISTICS. It may be added here, 

 from later sources, that the summary of agri- 

 cultural returns of Great Britain for 1882 gives 

 further evidence of the severe blow which a 

 seven years' cycle of bad seasons has inflicted 

 upon English agriculture. The area of wheat- 

 culture has somewhat increased, but probably 

 to no profit; and there is a decrease in the 

 number of cattle and sheep. The picture as a 

 whole is gloomy ; and the one that in the minds 

 of those interested in the matter is, how best 

 to increase the live-stock in English home 

 farming. 



ALABAMA. STATE GOVERNMENT. The 

 State officers during the year were as follows : 



Governor, Rufus W. Cobb, (Democrat) ; Secre- 

 tary of State, W. W. Screws ; Treasurer, I. H. 

 Vincent ; Auditor, J. M. Carmichael ; Attor- 

 ney-General, H. C. Tompkins ; Adjutant-Gen- 

 eral, J. F. White ; Superintendent of Education, 

 H. C. Armstrong ; State Librarian, J. M. Riggs. 

 Judiciary : Chief-Justice of Supreme Court, 

 Robert C. Brickell ; Associate Justices, George 

 W. Stone and H. M. Somerville. 



LEGISLATURE. The Legislature met on the 

 14th of November. On the 28th John T. Mor- 

 gan was re-elected United States Senator by 29 

 votes to 2 for Paul L. Jones in the Senate, and 

 84 to 10 for Jones in the House. Morgan was 

 supported by the Democrats and Jones by the 

 Republicans and Greenbackers. On December 

 1st Governor O'Neal was inaugurated. No im- 

 portant legislation had been perfected before 

 the close of the year. 



STATISTICS. The following is a summary of 

 receipts and disbursements for each year from 

 18T4 to 1882 : 



Governor Cobb, in his message to the Legis- 

 lature, says: 



I recommend a further reduction of the tax-rate. In 

 two years the balance in the Treasury has been more 

 than doubled, and is now entirely too large. Taxes 

 should be collected only as they are needed, and to 

 the extent they are > needed, for the proper purposes 

 of economical administration. 



The debt settlement provided for by the act 

 of February 23, 1876, has been practically com- 

 pleted. There yet remain outstanding a few of 

 the old bonds for which provision is made. As 

 they come in, new bonds, bearing interest from 

 the date of issue, are exchanged for them. It 

 is probable the most of those still out are lost 

 or destroyed. In two years, but $146,300 of 

 the new bonds, of all classes, have been issued. 

 The total bonded debt, including $253,500 of 

 eight per centum bonds held by the Agricultu- 

 ral and Mechanical College, is now $9,407,800, 

 on which the interest charge is $343,929. There 

 will be no further increase in the rate of inter- 

 est on any class of bonds until January, 1887, 

 when class A bonds will advance to four per 

 centum. The valuation of property for taxa- 

 tion has been for six years as follows : 1876, 

 $135,535,792; 1877, $130,799,138; 1878, $126,- 

 773,262; 1879, $123,757,072 ; 1880, $139,077,- 

 328; and 1881, $182,920,115. So far as the 

 abstracts have been received for 1882, they in- 

 dicate a still larger aggregate. 



The scholastic year ends September 30th, but 

 the reports of the Superintendent of Education 

 are often delayed for reports from county su- 

 perintendents. The report for 1880-'81 was 



not made until the middle of February, 1882, 

 and the report for 1881-''82 was not made dur- 

 ing the year. The total revenue of the school 

 department for 1880-'81 was $397,479.04, de- 

 rived from the following sources: Interest on 

 sixteenth section fund, $105,424.49; interest 

 on valueless sixteenth section fund, $5,825.47; 

 interest on United States surplus revenue fund, 

 $26,763.47; escheats to the State, $160.83; an- 

 nual appropriation, $130,000; unapportioned 

 balance from 1880, $1,092.45 ; and poll-tax col- 

 lected and retained in the counties, $128,212.33. 

 This was apportioned as follows: to counties 

 and cities, including the poll-tax, $382,552.52 ; 

 to the normal schools, $13,500; educational con- 

 tingent fund, $1,000 ; unapportioned, $426.52. 

 The expenditures of the fund were as follows : 

 Paid to teachers of white schools, $225,867.77; 

 to teachers of colored schools, $158,901.85 ; sal- 

 aries of county and city superintendents, $11,- 

 883.80 ; normal schools, $13,500 ; and contin- 

 gent expenses, $535.65. The total number of 

 children within the school ages enumerated was 

 88,003, of which 217,590 were whites and 170,- 

 413 were colored. The total number of chil- 

 dren enrolled was 176,289, of which 107,338 

 were whites and 68,951 were colored. The 

 daily average attendance in the white schools 

 was 66,840, and in the colored schools 48,476. 

 There were 4,572 schools taught during the 

 year, of which 2,981 were white schools and 

 1,591 were colored schools. The total number 

 of teachers was 4,698, of whom 3,053 were in 

 the white schools and 1,645 were in the colored 

 schools. The average length of time taught in 



