on a box of intestines and liver and things and
talk it over, and the curtain could go down with the heroine swooning in
the arms of the butcher.

[Illustration: JOHN MCCULLOUGH KILLING A TEXAS STEER.]

Seven years could elapse between that act and the next, and a scene could
be laid in a boarding house, and some of the same beef could be on the
table, and all that. Of course we do not desire to go into details. We are
no play writer, but we know what takes. People have got tired of
imitation blood on the stage. They kick on seeing a man killed in one act,
and come out as good as new in the next. Any good play writer can take the
cue from this article and give the country a play that will take the
biscuit.

Imagine John McCullough, or Barrett, instead of killing Roman supes with
night gowns on, and bare legs, killing a Texas steer. There's where you
would get the worth of your money. It would make them show the metal
within them, and they would have to dance around to keep from getting a
horn in their trousers. It does not require any pluck to go out behind the
scenes with a sword and kill enough supes for a mess.

GRANITE HEAD CHEESE.

A few years ago there was some excitement at Grand Rapids over the
discovery of a bed or quarry of granite. Some of it was taken out, from
the top of the quarry, and polished, and proved to be as fine as any that
is imported. Further working of the quarry, however, has developed a
strange thing. The further they go down the softer it is, and it has been
learned that the quarry is all head cheese, such as is sold by butchers.
On top it is petrified, and polishes very nicely, but a little below it is
nice and fresh, and can be cut out with a knife, all ready for the table.
A friend in Milwaukee, who has an uncle living at Grand Rapids, has
furnished us with a quantity of it, some of which we have eaten, and were
it not for the fact that we know it came from the quarry, it would be hard
to convince us that it was not concocted out of the remains of a butcher
shop. The people up there talk of running Hon. J.N. Brundage for Congress,
on the head cheese ticket, in order that he may use his influence to get
head cheese adopted as an army ration, and also as currency with which to
wipe out the national debt.

PECK'S BAD BOY AND HIS PA.

HIS PA AN INVENTOR.

"Ha! Ha! Now I have got you," said the grocery man to the had boy, the
other morning, as he came in and jumped upon the coun