The carnival of the Bowery is held on Saturday night. The down-town stores, the factories, and other business places close about five o'clock, and the street is thronged at an early hour. Crowds are going to market, but the majority are bent on pleasure. As soon as the darkness falls over the city the street blazes with light. Away up towards Prince street you may see the flashy sign of Tony Pastor's Opera House, while from below Canal street the Old Bowery Theatre stands white and glittering in the glare of gas and transparencies. Just over the way are the lights of the great German Stadt Theatre. The Atlantic Garden stands by the side of the older theatre, rivalling it in brilliancy and attractiveness. Scores of restaurants, with tempting bills of fare and prices astonishingly low, greet you at every step. "_Lager Bier_," and "_Grosses Concert_; _Eintritt frei_," are the signs which adorn nearly every other house. The lamps of the street venders dot the side-walk at intervals, and the many colored lights of the street cars stretch away as far as the eye can reach. The scene is as interesting and as brilliant as that to be witnessed in Broadway at the same hour; but very different. As different as the scene, is the crowd thronging this street from that which is rushing along Broadway. Like that, it represents all nationalities, but it is a crowd peculiar to the Bowery. The "rich Irish brogue" is well represented, it is true; but the "sweet German accent" predominates. The Germans are everywhere here. The street signs are more than one-half in German, and one might step fresh from the Fatherland into the Bowery and never know the difference, so far as the prevailing language is concerned. Every tongue is spoken here. You see the piratical looking Spaniard and Portuguese, the gypsy-like Italian, the chattering Frenchman with an irresistible smack of the Commune about him, the brutish looking Mexican, the sad and silent "Heathen Chinee," men from all quarters of the globe, nearly all retaining their native manner and habits, all very little Americanized. They are all "of the people." There is no aristocracy in the Bowery. The Latin Quarter itself is not more free from restraint. Among the many signs which line the street the word "_Exchange_" is to be seen very often. The "Exchanges" are the lowest class lottery offices, and they are doing a good business to-night, as you may see by the number of people passing in and out. The working people have just been paid off, and many of them are here now to squander their earnings in the swindles of the rascals who preside over the "Exchanges." These deluded creatures represent but a small part of the working class however. The Savings Banks are open to-night, many of them the best and most respectable buildings on the Bowery, and thousands of dollars in very small sums are left here for safe keeping.