6. The public charities of the State have been enlarged and elevated in their ministrations. The recent adoption of the Orphan Asylum at Oxford as a recipient of the State's bounty, the erection of a colored Deaf and Dumb Asylum, the erection of an hospital for the insane of the colored race, and the great building at Morganton for additional accommodation to white lunatics, are only a portion of the recent humanities inaugurated by the General Assembly. 7. Perhaps in no other respect is so much physical improvement possible as in the development of the mining interests of the State. Capital from abroad is flowing in, and from many counties fresh discoveries of mineral deposits are leading to the establishment of companies and firms for the purpose of working such mines. No other State of the Union presents such a variety of these rich and beautiful gifts of nature. The recent discovery, in the western part of the State, of a new gem, called the "Hiddenite," is attracting general attention and increasing the influx of visitors to the romantic scenery of the mountains. 8. For years past, it has been evident to intelligent observers that no bar exists to illimitable progression, both to North Carolina and the great American Republic, except in the senseless and cruel sectional hostilities. If the people, North and South, could only be induced to surrender their mutual distrust and aversion, thereby would disappear the last danger left to the American people. 1881. 9. God has blessed them year by year with over flowing barns. They are already one of the most numerous and wealthy of all nations; and yet, with so many blessings, sectional hatred had become the ruling emotion in countless breasts. Amid such a state of affairs, General James A. Garfield became President of the United States. On the 2d day of July he was shot down in Washington by an assassin. The news of this crime, when flashed over the electric wires, carried sorrow to the whole civilized world--and of all the cities of the Union, Raleigh was the first to express, by public meeting, the indignation of her people at the deed. In the weeks of the President's subsequent agony, as he lay battling with death, the hearts of the American people were strangely drawn together in the presence of this common national calamity. 10. When, on September 19th, it was announced that the long and painful struggle was ended, and the smitten statesman was at last eased of his agony by death, such grief was seen in all America as had never before been witnessed. In the presence of such a death all cries of dissension ceased to be heard, and every party and race united in the general mourning.