I received your letter on Wenesday night, enclosing the fifty dollars and am very much obliged to you for it.

We have had a very dry winter here and also very warm; we have had no ice, except once and then it was not more than a half an inch thick: there has been no snow at all this session, and I do not expect we shall have any.

There was a very tragical occurence at Hillsboro last week. Two or three students went up from this place, all of them of the rowdy kind, and one fell in with some loafers then, and got drunk. They then went to a tavern and on the tavern-keeper's coming down to stop the noise, one of the loafers advanced towards him; the tavern-keeper picked up a chair and the student, that was with them, drew a pistol and shot in the arm. He is out of all danger now; the student fled immediately from the state; he is a nephew of Chief Justice Ruffin . The attack was totally unprovoked, and it would be a good thingif the officers would catch him, as it would teach him a lesson not to be forgotten shortly. He was a very quarrelsome fellow, and it is said, that his father used to tell him to shoot any person, if he had any difficulty with him, and this is the consequence.

Please give my love to brother Charles and brother William and sister Mary .