Mr. Pleasants believes that agitation by press and public for a charge in industrial activities resulted in awakening North Carolina in the early thirties from the lethargy that had prevailed since 1810, so that "The people of the state became interested and soon a class of small manufacturers such as makers of carriages, wagons, and farm implements, coopers, wheelwrights, distillers, tanners, hatters and makers of boots and shoes, cabinets and chairs came into prominence and continued to thrive down to 1860. In addition to this class were the cotton, wool, and iron manufacturers who now began to appear and who became quite prominent after the building of railroads began."[56] It is, however, questionable whether it may be said truly that "the people of the state became interested"; certainly there was nothing like the sweep of public sentiment that appeared in 1880. Several years earlier the Tarboro, N.C. Free Press had carried this item: "A few days since twenty bales of cotton yarn were shipped from this place to the New York markets. They were from a manufactory of Joel Battle at the falls of Tar River.... Should the tariff bill meet with equal success with that of internal improvements, necessity will compel the people of the South and of North Carolina to join in the scuffle for the benefits anticipated from this new American system, and they will have to bear a portion of its burdens and buffet the Northern manufacturer with his own weapons."[57] Influenced by the pre-emption of land into large estates with the consequent need of the people to find other means of livelihood than small farming, by the discovery of gold and establishment of the mint, by the agitation for and construction of railroads and by the improvements in cotton manufacturing machinery, the people of Mecklenburg county, N.C., "Many years before the war", said Mr. Tompkins, "were beginning to realize the importance of diversified industries.... An industrial crisis was imminent, and the problem would have solved itself by natural agencies within a few more years, had not section differences brought on the war."[58] In connection with this statement, which approaches as nearly to the ascription of an industrial impulse to the ante-bellum South as any other by this writer, it is to be noticed that the fact that the war did come to render it impossible of effects shows the relative weakness of the spirit at this time. The pre-occupation with intersectional differences was of greater potency than the intra-sectional change of mind, if such there were. A South Carolina newspaper in 1847 reckoned up with pride eleven cotton factories in the State, with others building on the water powers of the back-country.[59]