While visiting Columbia, S. C., I was walking one day with a young gentleman, and we passed a rough looking countryman, "My! what a hoosier," exclaimed my escort. "That is a very noble term to apply to such an object," I said. "Why so," he inquired. "Why I am a Hoosier--all Indiana people are," I answered. "Oh! we do not use it in that sense here," he rejoined. "With us a hoosier means a jay." The following three statements were furnished to me by Mr. Meredith Nicholson, who collected them some months since: John Bell Henneman, of the department of English, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, writes: The word "hoosier" is generally used in Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee as an equivalent for "a country hoodlum," "a rough, uncouth countryman," etc. The idea of "country" is always attached to it in my mind, with a degree of "uncouthness" added. I simply speak from my general understanding of the term as heard used in the States mentioned above. Mr. Raymond Weeks, of Columbia, Mo., writes: Pardon my delay in answering your question concerning the word "hoosier" in this section. The word means a native of Indiana, and has a rare popular sense of a backwoodsman, a rustic. One hears: "He is a regular hoosier." Mrs. John M. Judah, of Memphis, writes: About the word "Hoosier"--one hears it in Tennessee often. It always means rough, uncouth, countrified. "I am a Hoosier," I have said, and my friends answer bewilderingly, "But all Indiana-born are Hoosiers," I declare, "What nonsense!" is the answer generally, but one old politician responded with a little more intelligence on the subject: "You Indianians should forget that. It has been untrue for many years." In one of Mrs. Evans's novels--"St. Elmo," I think--a noble philanthropic young Southern woman is reproached by her haughty father for teaching the poor children in the neighborhood--"a lot of hoosiers," he calls them. I have seen it in other books, too, but I can not recall them. In newspapers the word is common enough, in the sense I referred to.