MONDAY, FEB. 7. The rains in California are mostly confined to the three winter months—a few showers may come before, or a few occur after, but the body of the rain falls within that period. The rain is relieved of nearly all the chilling discomforts of a winter’s storm in other climes; it falls only when the wind is from a southern quarter, and is consequently warm and refreshing. It is by no means continuous; it pays its visits like a judicious lover—with intervals sufficient to keep up the affection; and like the suitor, brings with it flowers, and leads the fair one by the side of streamlets never wrinkled with frost, and into groves where the leaf never withers, and where the songs of birds ever fill the warbling air. THURSDAY, FEB. 10. By the laws and usages of the country, the judicial functions of the Alcalde of Monterey extend to all cases, civil and criminal, arising within the middle department of California. He is also the guardian of the public peace, and is charged with the maintenance of law and order, whenever and wherever threatened, or violated; he must arrest, fine, imprison, or sentence to the public works, the lawless and refractory, and he must enforce, through his executive powers, the decisions and sentences which he has pronounced in his judicial capacity. His prerogatives and official duties extend over all the multiplied interests and concerns of his department, and reach to every grievance and crime, from the jar that trembles around the domestic hearth, to the guilt which throws its gloom on the gallows and the grave. THURSDAY, FEB. 17. There is no need of an Orphan Asylum in California. The amiable and benevolent spirit of the people hovers like a shield over the helpless. The question is not, who shall be burdened with the care of an orphan, but who shall have the privilege of rearing it. Nor do numbers or circumstances seem to shake this spirit; it is triumphant over both. A plain, industrious man, of rather limited means, applied to me to-day for the care of six orphan children. I asked him how many he had of his own; he said fourteen as yet. “Well, my friend,” I observed, “are not fourteen enough for one table, and especially with the prospect of more?” “Ah,” said the Californian, “the hen that has twenty chickens scratches no harder than the hen that has one.” So I told him I would inquire into the present condition of the children, and then decide on his application. His claim lay in the fact that his wife was the godmother of the orphans.