PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 9th, 1853.

DEAR LIBERATOR:

  Last night, 'Uncle Tom' was brought out at the National Theatre in this city, and I went to see it, balancing my dislike of theatres, as they are, against the conviction that the Drama, as a legitimate branch of Art, will be for ever an educator of the people. The play was well prepared for the stage by Mr. S. E. Harris, who also personated Uncle Tom, in a manner so admirable as would have satisfied the author, had she been present, the excellence of it awakening vociferous and continued applause from an audience of three thousand persons.

  Many things marred the beauty of the piece, which the dramatist will change; but the impersonation of Uncle Tom, Topsy, Miss Ophelia, and Phineas Fletcher, compensated for many blemishes in the play, and, as far as may be, for the miserable representations of George Harris and Eliza. A large number of persons who do not frequent theatres were present, while every doorway, avenue and corner of the capacious building, from the stage to the roof, was crowded with the brawny populace, without coats, their heavy boots drawn characteristically over the trowsers, the hard lines of their faces softened by sympathy for the fugitive, or glowing with indignation against the pursuers, jeering the latter or encouraging the former by the united roar of stentorian lungs, restoring quiet by a simultaneous cry of 'Order,' that no word should be lost, and drowning the slightest hiss of disapprobation in shouts of applause. As I looked at the vast assembly, composed mainly of the very class which has mobbed the abolitionists for the last twenty years, and heard them cheer the most ultra anti-slavery, I thought of PARKER PILLSBURY's saying, that 'the theatres will receive the gospel of anti-slavery before the churches.'

  Every sentiment of freedom elicited applause. Where George Harris avows his intention to 'be free or die'—where Phineas Fletcher declares his deterimination to help Harris at all hazards, or where he demands an apology of the slave-hunter for asking him to join in the 'nigger business'—where he defaces the placard advertising the fugitive, and avows his intention to sarve the man who posted it 'just so'—where he misleads, entraps, and defeats the hunters, breaking their heads, and rolling them down the rocks—all these points were received with tremendous applause; while the slave-hunter's assertion that he had 'law on his side,' produced no little derision and hissing.

  Legree was quite well played; the moral resistance offered by Uncle Tom to the pirate's purposes was highly appreciated. Eva was prettily personated, and the audience grew to higher knowledge of the truth in view of her relation to Uncle Tom, and they melted to tears at her early death.

  On the whole, the Play was eminently successful, and one may infer a hopeful change in public sentiment, when they see three thousand persons unconsciously accepting anti-slavery truth; hundreds of boys—incipient rowdies, growing up to become the mobocracy of another generation, but preparing unwittingly to 'mob on the right side;' and I could not help thinking, that before we hold our third decade in Philadelphia, abolitionists may have to intercede to save slaveholders and slave-hunters from the fury of the mob, so long directed against us.

  The people are the natural conservators of right, subject to misdirection, both as to the perception of it, and the true means to promote it. They will perceive and acknowledge their obligations to freedom, long before they admit the highest means of fulfilling them; and we may expect a cycle of mob violence for anti-slavery, as there has been against it.

  The 'dramatic era' of Uncle Tom is Humanity's special compensation for the Fugitive Slave Law; meeting the latter in the popular heart, and changing the materials for the 'Marshal's posse' into fitness to become a body-guard of the fugitive. So be it!

Very truly, B. R. P.