Viña del Mar, which includes the stations of Mira Mar and Chorrillos, is the popular pleasure and seaside resort of Chile. It is attractively situated in a verdant valley, surrounded by rugged hills, has a fine bathing beach, a number of large hotels, many beautiful residences and cottages, and during the summer season, December to March, it is thronged with visitors from Santiago and other interior cities, who go annually to that favorite resort for the baths and the social pleasures incident to a season at Viña. Among the attractive features of the resort are a fine race course, where are held two race meetings a year, polo, cricket, football, tennis, golf, etc. CONCEPCION. Concepcion, the third city in size and commercial importance in the Republic, has a population of 60,000. It is a characteristic Spanish-American municipality, with some European features, Oriental and indolent in appearance, with long stretches of unattractive streets, flanked with houses painted in many colors. Situated in the verdant valley of the Bio Bio, near its confluence with the bay of Arauco, it is surrounded by orchards ladened with fruits, and gardens brilliant with the bloom of beautiful flowers. Well tilled, irrigated haciendas, with stone walls and lines of graceful alamos defining their limits, cover the lovely plain, back of which rise tree-crowned hills, adding a picturesque feature to the scene. It is the commercial metropolis of a large section of productive country, and enjoys a business prosperity and trade activity surpassed only by Valparaiso. The ports of entry for Concepcion are Talcahuano and Coronel, a few miles distant and situated on the bay of Arauco. MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. Under the constitution of Chile, municipalities constituted a part of the general government, and until recent years were controlled by national authority. Article 127 of the Constitution, 1833, says: “The governor is the chief of all the municipalities in his department, and president of that one in which his capital is established. The sub-delegate is president of the municipality in his sub-delegation.” The Intendentes, or governors of provinces, with jurisdiction over the cities and towns in their respective territories, are appointed by the president, and they in turn appoint the sub-delegates. All public improvements and municipal works were formerly authorized by the government and paid for out of the general fund. The purpose of the framers of the constitution was apparently to keep the municipalities out of politics. The authority of the legislative branches of the municipal government, whose members are elected for three years, was limited and their duties perfunctory.