COSTA RICA. 



199 



Marine, Sefior Rafael Machado; Foreign Af- 

 fairs, Justice, Public Instruction, and the Poor- 

 Commission, Dr. Jose Maria Castro ; Finance 

 and Commerce, Sefior Salvador Lara ; and Pub- 

 lic Works, Licentiate M. Argiiello. 



The Bishop of San Jose is the Rt. Rev. 

 Bernhard Thiele. 



The Consul-General of Costa Rica at New 

 York is Sefior J. M. Mufioz ; the United States 

 Minister (resident in Guatemala, and accredited 

 to the five Central American Republics Cos- 

 ta Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and 

 Salvador) is Dr. Cornelius A. Logan ; and the 

 United States Consul at San Jose is Mr. A. 

 Morrell. 



The military force of the republic consists 

 of the militia, comprising all male inhabitants 

 between the ages of eighteen and thirty, num- 

 bering (according to recent returns) 15,225, of 

 whom 900 constitute troops usually engaged 

 in regular service. The reserves are made up 

 of men between thirty and fifty- five. 



The following tables show the amounts and 

 various branches of the national revenue and 

 expenditure for the year ending April 30, 

 1880: 



REVENUE. 



National Bank (capital and deposits in).. . $5,189 



Puntarenas custom-house 965,005 



Limon custom-house 19,202 



Monopolies 1,241,951 



Government property 230.169 



Taxes, etc 101,587 



Sundries 289,176 



Total $2,802,279 



EXPENDITURE. 



Ministry of the Interior $251,733 



Ministry of Finance and Commerce 127,586 



Foreign Affairs 15,736 



War and Marine 712,594 



Justice 71,170 



Public Works 138.892 



Public Instruction 132,245 



Public Worship 18,063 



Railways 1,255,961 



Police 40,552 



Monopolies 816,052 



Debt to Peru 173,585 



Aqueduct of Heredia 24,972 



San Jos6 Hospital 13,575 



Paper money 15,744 



Sundries 152,187 



Total... 



, . . $3,460,597 





By comparing the totals of these two tables, 

 it will be observed that there was a deficit of 

 $658,318 in the finances of the year referred to. 



In the budget for 1880-'81 the revenue and 

 expenditure were estimated at $3,164,051 each. 



The yield of the customs department in 1879 

 -'80 was but $984,207, against $1,088,890 for 

 the year immediately previous, and $1,010,787 

 for 1877-'78. 



The item "monopolies" in the above table 

 of the revenue comprises the spirit-tax, $766,- 

 321, the tobacco-tax, $469,140 ; and the pow- 

 der-tax, $2,193. Under the head of "Govern- 

 ment property" are included the Post-Office, 

 $37,139; railways, $106,328; telegraphs, $9,- 

 302 ; the National Printing-Office, $6,567 ; in- 

 terest on Government lands, $12,155; tolls, 



(Barranca bridge), $9,832, etc. The item " tax- 

 es" comprises stamp-duty, $23,430; licenses 

 for the sale of spirits, $20,401 ; mortgage im- 

 posts, $18,767; abattoirs, $19,430, etc. In 

 virtue of a decree issued toward the end of 

 the year, guano and other phosphates for agri- 

 cultural purposes will not only be entered free 

 of customs duty and wharf-dues, but the im- 

 porters of the same will be entitled to a premium 

 of $5 per ton. Mining machinery is also to be 

 free of duty. According to the report of the 

 Finance Department, under date of April 30, 

 1880, the national debt stood as follows: Lia- 

 bilities, $6,258,269, comprising Foreign debt, 

 $5,463,285 ; bills of exchange, $176,886 ; paper 

 money, $105,915 ; sundry consolidated funds, 

 $161,682 ; home debt, $140,774 ; sundries, 

 $210,087; and assets, $10,918,062, made up of, 

 immovables (including railways), $10,281,778 ; 

 tobacco, spirits, etc., in warehouse, $155,321 ; 

 bank capitals, $156,788 ; municipal funds, $30,- 

 805 ; other funds, $203,370. 



On August 14th the Government made a 

 second issue of Treasury bonds, to the amount 

 of $50,000, thus completing $100,000. The 

 Union Bank was commissioned to dispose of 

 them, and did so immediately, among the lead- 

 ing bankers and merchants of the capital, at 

 the rate of 25 per cent. 



Of the foreign commerce of Costa Rica little 

 can here be said, no complete statistics of that 

 branch having been published since the date of 

 those given in the " Annual Cyclopaedia " for 

 1878. The imports through the port of Punta- 

 renas (on the Pacific seaboard) in 1879-'80, 

 appear to have been of the value of $2,669,861 ; 

 and those through Limon (on the Atlantic 

 coast), for the first four months of 1880, of the 

 value of $133,500. The exports, through the 

 same ports and for the same periods, respec- 

 tively, were of the value of $3,524,810 and 

 $211,142. 



The quantities of Costa Rica coffee sent to 

 San Francisco in the four years last past were 

 as follows: 1877, 62,306 bags; 1878, 30,460 

 bags; 1879, 17,125 bags; 1880, 38,027. 



In his annual report for 1879, the Minister 

 of Public Works states that $1,255,960 has 

 been expended on the railway during that 

 year that is to say, on the three sections of 

 the road which the country possesses, and 

 which, writes a journalist, the Government 

 assures the public it is its fixed purpose to 

 unite into a grand interoceanic highway. At 

 present they are isolated and detached, and the 

 benefits accruing from them are local and un- 

 important. The Pacific section, from Punta- 

 renas to Esparza, a distance of thirteen miles, 

 has been finished, at a cost of nearly a half a 

 million of money. The principal item of ex- 

 pense in its construction has been the iron 

 bridge over the Barranca, a stream which has 

 hitherto offered considerable difficulties to 

 travel during the rainy season. These will 

 now, probably, be at an end for a time. The 

 central division is the only portion which pro- 



