The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-07-03
THE BowERY SATURDAY NIGHT.
The Eccentricities of that Famous
New York Thoroughfare.

a sort OF companion piece to Inc Market
on Saturday Night" which had a run all
over the country for awhile, and in New
York the former ditty was seized upon by
the whole east end of town, from the Bat
terry to West Farms, and was sung and
whlstled for months after THE Market on
Saturday Night" had been forgotten. But
the Bowery song never got outside Of New
York. If it was sung anywhere else the
listeners voted it dull, tuneless, and spirit
less, and they'd have none of it, They
couldn't understand the BOwery as the New
York east siders do, and just because of its
local flavor New York found sparkling wit,
soulful melody, and glowing life in the song
that was unappreciated elsewhere.
And no wonder. To the whole east side
bouroeoiSie of the metropolis the Bowery
is akin to paradise. 1t is the social center
where beaux meet bellies, and where papas
its kaleidoscope changes of color
in the shop-windows, blazing with
light on Saturday nights, it is panorama
of beauty and wonderful effects. 1t is a
charming summer resort in the dog days
and glorious winter watering-place when
the mercury is below zero. 1t is lovers lane,
a fashionable promenade, and bustling
business mart. 1t is the Bowery, and that
means, to New Yorker at least, more than
any pen is able to describe
| took in the Bowery last Saturday night
about 10 o'clock. At the lower end Of the
great thoroughfare at Chatham square
there was the first noticeable feature of the
Bowery in half dozen big pawnshops,
that are kept wide open this one night in
the week. Men and women and children
were pouring in and crowding out of these
resorts of the improvident, and l let the
tide, formed by three fat women and
couple of longshoremen, carry me into the
biggest of the establishments, Every
body came to redeem some
article, for it was pay night.
Men got back watches and clothing they
had pledged, women received jewelry and
clothing too, and children were handed
bundles of all kinds. Great family Bibles
were lugged away under arms or on tiny
shoulders; wan women seized their little
gold-plated f1nger-rings and pressed them to
their lips as they hurried out; young fellows
redeemed medals awarded for merit of
some kind: workmen got back their tools;
bonnets, shoes, table linen, spoons, books,
firearms, guitars, fddles, accOrdions, even
an embroidered pair of suspenders, with
other articles, were handed across the long
counter by the five busy clerks, and just be-
fore let the ebb of the human tide carry
me out again, well-dressed old gentleman
planked down SIS odd and received a rail-
road pass.
Just above the pawnshops, on the west
side of the Bowery, there was an influx of
humanity of foreign birth. From Baxter
street came greasy Poles and Slavs, with
shuf1ing, sneaking sort of gait. Out of
Mott street flowed yellow stream of chat
tering Cinnamon. From Mulberry street
swarthy Italians joined the crowd, and for
several blocks l listened in vain for one
word spoken in English. When at length
! hear / the national language it was
bel ma ga limos a
hatchet-faced ''shouter" in front of a
dime museum, and announced that there
were stage dramatic performances
within every ten minutes, with
tho only living, genuine female
mermaid and the only living gent in perfect
health with a broken neckw A hideous
painting of the ''gent" was exhibited with
the head hanging aSkew of his body
and bis eyes leering at the beholder, verit-
able nightmare of art. There were also
pictures of a fascinating young lady with
fsh's tail attachment, creature with the
form of woman and the face of pig,
monkey with two heads and ever SO many
legs, a fat woman, and a living skeleton
Few of the Bowery habitues patronized this
museum or any Of the many others along
the street, as they knew from experience
that the pictures and the suasive language
of the shouter were false pretenses Of attrac-
tons which did not exist.
Just below Canal street there was some
glaring lights which gave glimpses behind
swinging doors of gaudy barroomS whence
the music of a fiddle and harp walled out
on the air at intervals. Within these
places in bygone days brazenly bedecked
females gave every visitor turn in
waltz and picked his pocket at the same
time; but Mayor Hewitt has driven away
these harpies from their former resorts, SO
that rural sightseers are no longer
'!steered" into them. Here, too, is a
theater for Hebrews in which plays with
biblical characters are acted, the actors
using the "Judisch" dialect, understood by
Jews of all nativities.
From Canal street northward to Grand is
the great promenade. Girls, girls every
where in q wonderfully varied color of
dress and of q still more wonderfully varied
complexion. Beauties of all nations and
climes, there were dark-eyed houriS Il be-
heve all dusky-eyed females are called
houris) from Spain and Italy, blue-eyed
blondes from Sweden and Denmark, with
al the types peculiar to Germany, Ireland,
France, and further distant chimes. Those
who had ''fellers' weren't at all abashed at
an encircled arm about their waist in public,
and those who didn't have male company
put their arms around one another. They
We're happy lot, making the most of the
evening holiday after week Of work in
shops and factories by venting their joy in
laughter and snatches of song, and dressed
in their BEST in honor of the occasion.
Beaux were dressed dandily, too, and each
of them wore his hat ashanti on close
cropped head and bore big cigar aslant in
the corner of q capacious mouth. A few
squares further up the whole front width
of large building was wide open, and the
decorated interior was brilliantly
shown to every passer-by by a hun
bred electric lights. Away back at the
end could be seen an orchestra of young
women playing on a raised platform, and
everywhere white-aproned walters were
carrying glasses of foaming beer among the
little round tables, from which tobacco
smoke arose in clouds. This is one of the
family resorts for the city's big German
population, and whose families, from gross
mttter down to toddling kinder, come hither
nightly and spend the evening. The COM
bination of music and beer brings them, no
doubt, and yet nobody thinks Of paying the
slightest attention TO the orchestra. 1t
played away bravely during the whole half
hour taat spent in the Garden, as such
resorts are always called, but whether it was
playing the Boulanger march or Yankee
Doodle only the orchestra itself could tell.
German husbands argued with loud cultural
voices to ether German husbands, and
pounded the tables TO enforce their argu
ments; German wives gossiped shrilly with
other German wives; German babies