The diminution in the value of personal property is chiefly owing to the emancipation of the slaves. In 1870 the taxation not national amounted to $2,627,029, of which $945,394 was state tax, $906,270 county tax, and $775,-365 town, city, etc, tax. The public debt was $21,753,712, of which $6,544,500 (funded, but not including bonds issued subsequently to 1868) was state debt; $561,735, of which $300,386 was funded, county debt; and $14,-647,477 town, city, etc, debt, of which all but $264,162 was funded. The total receipts into the state treasury during the fiscal vear amounted to $1,164,304, of which $732,898 was from general taxes, $35,924 from liquor tax, $5,778 from licenses, $21,446 from corporations, $45,000 from state railroad, $10,-292 from interest, $310,000 from loans, and $2,966 from miscellaneous sources. The disbursements amounted to $1,444,817, of which $17,035 was for the executive department, $526,891 for legislative expenses, $35,280 for the judiciary, $2,547 for penitentiary expenses, $114,647 for institutions for deaf and dumb, blind, and insane, $20,000 for educational purposes, $57,321 for printing. $495,608 for payments and interest on public debt, and $175,-488 for miscellaneous expenses.

The treasurer in his report for the year ending Dec. 31, 1873, gives the outstanding debt of the state, Jan. 1, 1874, as follows:

The issue of 1870 is gold bonds; the rest, currency. The total annual interest is $586,460. During the administration of Gov. Bullock, 1868-71, bonds to the amount of $8,360,000 were issued, and the state indorsed bonds of various railroad companies to the amount of $7,923,000. It having been charged that the greater part had been illegally and fraudulently issued or indorsed, a committee was appointed by an act of Dec. 9, 1871, to investigate the subject, which sat at Atlanta during March and April, 1872. Of the state bonds $2,280,000 were returned and cancelled, $3,482,000 were declared null and void by the legislature in accordance with the report of the committee, and $2,598,000 were recognized as valid, $2,098,000 of this amount being included in the preceding table. Of the indorsed bonds $240,000 were returned and cancelled, with respect to $4,475,000 all obligation is disclaimed, while $194,000 of the Alabama and Chattanooga railroad, $464,000 of the South Georgia and Florida railroad, and $2,550,000 of the Macon and Brunswick railroad, in all $3,208,-000, are admitted to be binding upon the state.

This amount being added to the aggregate of the table, the total recognized debt at the beginning of 1874 becomes $11,550,500. The receipts during 1872, with the balance on hand at the beginning of the year, are shown in the following table:

The disbursements were $1,335,207 14, viz.: $692,892 paid on public debt, $295,227 73 on special appropriation, $172,251 92 on legislative pay rolls, $99,403 49 on civil establishment, $39,628 72 on contingent fund, $26,977 23 on printing fund, $5,261 32 on educational fund, and $3,564 73 on overpavment of taxes; cash on hand Jan. 1, 1873, $776,133 70, of which $100,000 was set apart to pay coupons maturing on that day, and $108,706 20 belonged to the special and $184,277 46 to the general school fund. The total receipts in 1873 were $2,406,655 04; total disbursements, $2,250,232 49. The state owns the Western and Atlantic railroad, valued at $7,000,000; 10,000 shares of stock in the Atlantic and Gulf railroad company (par value $1,000,000), worth $200,000; and 186 shares in the Georgia railroad and banking company, $18,600; total, $7,218,600. It also owns 1,833 shares in the bank of the State of Georgia and 890 shares in the bank of Augusta, but they have no market value. The Western and Atlantic railroad was leased to a company for 20 years in December, 1870, at the monthly rent of $25,000. The assessed value of property in 1872 was $243,620,466, of which $226,633,263 was taxable.

The taxable property in 1873 amounted to $242,487,382. The rate of taxation was 50 cents per $100; 40 cents for general purposes, and 10 cents for school purposes. The institution for the deaf and dumb, at Cave Spring, Floyd co., in 1873 had 5 instructors and 63 pupils, of whom 29 were males and 34 females. The academy for the blind, at Macon, had 4 instructors (2 blind) and 47 pupils. The state lunatic asylum, near Milledgeville, has 10 officers (2 non-resident); number of patients, Dec. 1, 1873, 576. The penitentiary is at Milledgeville. The convicts, 664 in number (93 white and 571 colored), are all leased to a corporation, and employed on public works in different parts of the state. The state has only one officer, the principal keeper, under pay, and derives a revenue from the lease.-Before the civil war no common school system existed in the state, although certain funds had been set apart, and were distributed to the various counties, for the education of indigent children. The constitution of 1868 required the legislature to establish a system of common schools, and to carry this provision into effect an act was passed in 1870, which has been superseded by the general school law of Aug. 23, 1872. This law constitutes the governor, attorney general, secretary of state, comptroller general, and state school commissioner, the state board of education, which is an advisory body to the commissioner, and hears as a court of last resort appeals from his decisions touching the administration or construction of the school laws.

The state commissioner is charged with the administration of the school laws, and is general superintendent of the public schools; he apportions the school revenue to the several counties in proportion to the number of youth from 6 to 18 years of age and of confederate soldiers under 30 years of age resident in each, and is required to make an annual report to the legislature. Each county constitutes a school district, under the control of a county board of education consisting of five freeholders, who are elected for four years by the grand jury. The board chooses a secretary for the same term, who is ex officio the county school commissioner, divides the county into subdistricts, and in each is required to establish one or more primary schools, and, where the public wants demand them, graded schools from the primary to the high school grade. The county boards have a general supervision of the schools and school houses of their counties, employing the teachers, and prescribing the text books, but no sectarian nor sectional books are to be used, nor can the Bible be excluded from the public schools.