11. The year 1878 witnessed the establishment of a RESIDENT CHINESE EMBASSY at Washington. For twenty years the great treaty negotiated by Anson Burlingame had been in force between the United States and China. The commercial relations of the two countries had been vastly extended. On the 28th of September the embassy chosen by the imperial government was received by the President. The ceremonies of the occasion were among the most interesting ever witnessed in Washington. The speech of Chen Lan Pin, the minister, was equal in dignity and appropriateness to the best efforts of a European diplomatist. [Sidenote: =Life Saving Service.=] 12. In June, 1878, the LIFE SAVING SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES was established by act of Congress. The plan proposed the establishment of regular stations and lighthouses on all the exposed parts of the Atlantic coast and along the Great Lakes. Each station was to be manned by a band of surfmen experienced in the dangers peculiar to the shore in times of storms, and drilled in the best methods of rescue and resuscitation. Boats and other appliances of the most approved pattern were provided and equipped. The success of the enterprise has been so great as to reflect the highest credit on its promoters. The number of lives saved through the agency of the service reaches to thousands annually, and the amount of human suffering and distress alleviated by this beneficent movement is beyond computation. [Sidenote: =Specie Resumption.=] 13. On the 1st of January, 1879, the RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS was accomplished by the treasury of the United States. After seventeen years' disappearance, gold and silver coin, which during that time had been at a premium over the legal-tender notes of the government, again came into common circulation. 14. The presidential election of 1880 was accompanied with the excitement usually attendant upon great political struggles in the United States. The Republican national convention was held in Chicago on the 2d and 3d of June; a platform of principles was adopted, and General James A. Garfield, of Ohio, was nominated for President. For Vice-president, Chester A. Arthur, of New York, received the nomination. The Democratic national convention assembled at Cincinnati on the 22d of June, and nominated for the presidency General Winfield S. Hancock, of New York, and for the Vice-presidency William H. English, of Indiana. The National Greenback party held a convention in Chicago on the 9th of June, and nominated General James B. Weaver, of Iowa, for President, and General Benjamin J. Chambers, of Texas, for Vice-president. The election resulted in the choice of Garfield and Arthur. Two hundred and fourteen electoral votes, embracing those of nearly all the Northern States, were cast for the Republican candidates. [Sidenote: =General Grant's Tour.=]