Hoosier. A nickname given at the West, to natives of Indiana. A correspondent of the Providence Journal, writing from Indiana, gives the following account of the origin of this term: Throughout all the early Western settlements were men who rejoiced in their physical strength, and on numerous occasions, at log-rollings and house-raisings, demonstrated this to their entire satisfaction. They were styled by their fellow-citizens, hushers, from their primary capacity to still their opponents. It was a common term for a bully throughout the West. The boatmen of Indiana were formerly as rude and primitive a set as could well belong to a civilized country, and they were often in the habit of displaying their pugilistic accomplishments upon the levee at New Orleans. Upon a certain occasion there one of these rustic professors of the "noble art" very adroitly and successfully practiced the "fancy" upon several individuals at one time. Being himself not a native of the Western world, in the exuberance of his exultation he sprang up, exclaiming, in a foreign accent, "I'm a hoosier, I'm a hoosier." Some of the New Orleans papers reported the case, and afterwards transferred the corruption of the word "husher" (hoosier) to all the boatmen from Indiana, and from thence to all her citizens. The Kentuckians, on the contrary, maintained that the nickname expresses the gruff exclamation of their neighbors, when one knocks at a door, etc., "Who's yere?" Both of these theories have had adherents, and especially the latter, though nobody has ever found any basis for their historical features beyond the assertion of this newspaper correspondent. Nobody has ever produced any evidence of the use of the word "husher" as here indicated. It is not found in any dictionary of any kind--not even in Bartlett's. I have never found any indication of its former use or its present survival. And there is no greater evidence of the use of the expression "Who's yere?" when approaching a house. As a matter of fact, the common custom when coming to a house and desiring communication with the residents was to call, "Hallo the house!" And this custom is referred to in Finley's line: He hailed the house, and then alighted.