Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1868-03-29
AN OPTICAL ILLUSION.
Strange HaIIucination of n Newspa
npr MAN

per Man.
On one of our principal streets, in the
midst of beautiful garden, and but few
steps from the sidewalk, stands a fine bronze
statue of male deer. With great branch
ing antIers tossed aloft, and body half bid
den in the surrounding foliage, IFS poise
seems the mingled altitude of surprise and
anger.
We know of a newspaper reporter who,
in tramping his solitary rounds, has often
in morning and evening twilights started
with underlined horror, as a careless glance
over his shoulders has revealed the metal
brute in the very act of charging upon him
no Metropolitan near-and he has always
lowered his pencil, Withdrawn his back
from the lamp post, and retired his adj
vanced foot-a position instinctively as
sumed by the brave in moments of peril,
only TO find the creature but harmless
ornament again. He had learned TO
look upon these little fancies as aberra
tons engendered by overworked legs
the same reviving memories of real
deer hunt years ago, in which both buck
and reporter blood would have flowed had
the reporter been without legs. The other
afternoon, however, a scene occurred which
caused doubt to enter his mind, as to the
settled fact of the entire materiality of this
statue.
One of those deliciously warm days Of
last week was drawing to a close, and he
had worn away breath, patience and sole
leather, in a vain chase after a double
tailed monstrosity of which he had gained
an inkling, and was standing with his hat
off, wistfnlly eyeing a group Of many-hned
bottles in druggists window over the way,
wondering when soda items would be At
par, when loud shout just below startled
him into consciousness. Wheeling about,
he beheld a tall, stately gentleman, with
rather a reverend beard, holding on to the
iron fence with one hand, and furiously
waving a white felt hat at the image of the
deer: "Look at him Amt he picter
See his head go mp and down-so! so
Whoop f." and the elated old fellow fairly
danced with uncontrolled excitement. A
horrid thought seized the newspaper man;
this nice elderly person, stranger, and no
doubt very nervous, had been attacked with
a violent fit of the reporters old symptoms.
Sympathetically forcing his way through
crowd of grinning Juveniles to the I'M
fortunate gentleman's side, the chap of the
pencil soothingly placed hand on his
shoulder, and at the same time dexterously
drew from his grasp a large-sized flask,
which he mistook to be a receptacle of
nitro-glycerin, so fariously was the old gem
tleman shaking it in the face of the ugly
brute, shouting, in ali exhausted sort of way,
something which sounded like, ''Take nip,
old buck ~ The reporter was confident he
could have restored the gentleman in a
few moments, had not two fierce, whiskered
Metropolitans rushed upon the scene, and
despite all argument and entreaty, pre-
nounced the ranting old gent drunk, and
hurried him away. Indignation at this
vile usage of fellow-suherer, so over
powered him that he remained, statue-like,
gazing after the retreating rabble, until they
disappeared round an adjacent corner.
Then suddenly remembering he had in his
possession the suspicious flask, he drew il
forth, eyed, smelled, tasted and at length
swallowed a morsel of its contents, gradu-
ally arriving at the conviction, that it was
an innocent sort of stuff after all. He then
set off in an absent sort Of way, to hunt
up an honest Metropolitan who might be
trusted with the delivery of the flask to its
original owner. He met numbers ofpersons,
but, strange to say, they all seemed some
what unsteady in their department, with
bold way of staring him in the face, which
he had never remarked before. At length
he began to feel ill-decidedly ill-snd
running Suddenly against another knight
of the club, he resolved to confde in him.
Some one here apologized-reporter
thought it was the club-some one re-
marked some one was inebriated, which
some one Indignantly resented. Things at
this point looked equally, and he made a
memorandum of the clubs number. and
then getting irredeemably befogged hfre
membered little more The following is
the number as taken from his book next
morning: 897-92-5-1.