There is a Congress, consisting of a Senate of twelve members and a Chamber of Deputies of twenty-four, elected biennially, as in the United States. Also a Council of six men, selected from the Congress by the President, who act as a sort of cabinet and Supreme Court combined. They are continually in session, have power to review the decisions of the courts, to reverse or affirm them, to issue decrees which have the force of law until the next session of the Congress, to audit the accounts of the Treasury, and perform various other acts. This Council is confirmed by the Congress, and is supposed to act as a check upon the President and the judiciary. The President has a cabinet of two members, appointed by himself, and they are usually the two Vice-Presidents, or Designados. To one he will assign the duty of looking after foreign affairs and the finances of the Government, while the other will have the army, the educational system, and other internal affairs to manage. The successor of the famous cow-boy President, Guardia, was his brother-in-law, General Prospero Fernandez, one of his lieutenants in the revolution by which he came into power, [Illustration: DON BERNARDO DE SOTO, PRESIDENT OF COSTA RICA.] and who was made commander-in-chief of the army of two hundred and fifty men when Guardia took the Executive chair. He was a man of fine appearance, but of dull and slow mental powers, spending most of his time upon his hacienda, or plantation, and leaving the affairs of the State to his secretaries, Don Jesus Maria Castro and Don Bernardo de Soto. Fernandez died before the expiration of his term, in the spring of 1885, and was succeeded by De Soto, a young man of whom much is expected. He was a pet and protégé of the great Guardia, and after graduating at the University of San José was sent to Europe to complete his education, and by a study of the world as well as books to qualify himself to succeed his patron in the Presidential chair. Guardia died, however, before De Soto had reached the age that made him eligible to the Presidency, and Fernandez stepped in to fill the interim. He conscientiously acted as a sort of trustee or executor of Guardia’s will, and made the young man, then only twenty-seven, his Minister of War, Education, and Public Works. When Fernandez died De Soto assumed the Presidency, just as if he had inherited a crown, there being no other candidate. The President has just passed his thirtieth birthday, and commands the respect and confidence of the people.