WE remember, about thirteen years ago, the Freeman's Hall in Philadelphia was burned down by a mob, the authorities of that city apparently winking at the outrage. Judges on the bench consoled themselves on the outrage because the Union was saved. We are reminded in the following paragraph from the Post of a similar state of feeling on the same subject once existing here:

  "It is not very long since in this city the mob stormed Chatham street Chapel, drove out the peaceful assembly of men and women, and obliged two of the principal persons in the assembly, Rev. Dr. Cox and Mr. Arthur Tappan, to hide themselves from the frantic violence that threatened their lives. The mob, as our readers may recollect, was not composed of labouring men; it was called, by way eminence, the genteel mob; the persons of whom it was made up wore, for the most part, fine broad-cloth coats and unexceptionable shirts. The meeting broken up was an Anti-Slavery meeting. The mob was instigated by New York merchants and the New York Courier was employed in the work of stimulating the rioters to the work of illegal violence. For some time after that event, any man who should be bold enough to attempt the getting up of an Anti-Slavery meeting in New York, would have been suspected of privately having an eye to the crown of martyrdom."

  The Post is right in dilating upon the great change of public opinion which allows an Anti-Slavery meeting to be held every night at the National Theatre, for such is the performance of Uncle Tom's Cabin dramatized. Having no admiration for our minor theatres, we do not attend them, but did go by exception to that establishment to see the the famous African put on the stage. The effect of the piece on the audience was what most interested us, and we took a seat in a stage-box so as to witness the play of countenance of the crowd in pit and boxes. The pit was composed exclusively of men and lads without coats or waistcoats. In the full insouciance of such costume they crowded it, in a curious parallel to the toilets of the opera parquet. The boxes generally had auditors in careful attire; but one young mother who suckled her baby in the dress-circle presented a naif parallelism with the b'hoyism of the pit.

  The overture commenced. It was a melange of negro airs summoning up Southern recollections. That finished, the curtain rose. The piece is essentially the same as the novel, except that some scenes are omitted, and some characters introduced for the broad humour deemed necessary to placate the audience in question. We are at once introduced to the scene between Shelby and Haley; Eliza and her child flying, Uncle Tom refusing to go; and the first act concludes with the frantic mother and her little boy making their escape on the ice. This was the earliest tableau, and the pit and the boxes were unanimous in their applause. The "b'hoys" were on the side of the fugitives. The pro-slavery feeling had departed from among them. They did not wish to save the Union. They believed in the higher law.

  So, too, in the pursuit of George Harris, when he makes his escape, and the pursuing party are entrapped and held down in a cellar, the shirt-sleeves were in a frenzy of applause; they "hey-heyed," stamped, shouted, and gave vent to the most vociferous feeling, all because a slave had escaped from his master. And the scene where Fletcher confronts Loker on the rocks, and the fugitives are saved, met with triple salvos of approbation. In all the allusions, too, to human rights, in the assertions of the value of personal responsibility, the claims of labour to reward, there was a vehement response all over the house, but especially from that part in shirt-sleeves.

  The play is a veritable piece de mouchoir, a comedie larmoyante—for tears were freely shed by the audience. Men, women, and children had their eyes suffused regarding the miseries of humanity, as depicted in the annals of the poor, the despised, and the oppressed. The touch of nature was a true Abolitionist: it abolished the prejudice of colour and caste—of fits of patriotism which would make the peculiar institution the "corner stone of freedom," according to McDuffie—of that wry-necked retrospection which looks exclusively to the past for sanctions, and fears the problems of the political present and future as the yawnings of a drear and dismal eternity. A strong, healthy sentiment was visible throughout on the part of the public. They begin to think, spite of the pusillanimity of commercial churches and trading every-day life, which look to vested interests for morals instead of charity, the basis at once of religion and republicanism.

  No mob would have dared to disturb the Abolition party at the National Theatre. It was composed largely of the stuff which demagogues acting under oligarchs have used for the purpose of burning down halls, destroying printing presses, assaulting public speakers, intimidating, striking, killing. Now that is changed, at least in Chatham street. Here, opinion is safe. Here, the Union-saviours with bludgeons are cowed. Here, cowardly authorities need not be invoked in vain to sustain liberty of speech or action. Here, the strongest form of Abolition-teaching—that of the drama, its scenes palpitating with versimilitude, whether of life or death, stirring up the deepest founts of our common humanity—presenting in dress, look, action, locality, sequence and combination, the rare story which has shaken the heart of Europe and America to its centre, reconstructed the statistics of successful authorship, overarched the ordinary forms of international courtesies by ignoring diplomacy and exalting the private person, created a European interest in the entire workings and products of our native mind, and shown the force of a simple appeal to our highest nature, in a manner without rival or parallel in the whole range of human history.

  We would add that the mise en scene and costumes of Uncle Tom dramatized show a large and growing artistic perception in the arrangements of our theatres. The observance of proprieties of dress and the selection of characters physically representative of the ideas personated would have done credit to the French stage. Of course a certain latitude must be allowed for the ridiculous in certain characters. The appearance of Marks constituted a study in itself. The painting of his face, and his hat, coat, trowsers, altogether were an inspiration. Legree was the perfection of mere ruffianism, in looks and manner, and his bearing at the slave-mart constituted one of the best moral lessons of the evening. To see an apparently real slave mart, men and women, each taking his or her turn standing on the block to be sold—to hear the easy professional tones of the auctioneer dilating on "a serviceable article, quite given to piety"—to see the kicks and lashes inflicted on the articles, the handlings of the quadroons, the meanness, misery, swagger, brutality, and the all-ferocious, ungodly, crushing, overwhelming wrong of the system is equally a dramatic and historic novelty in this city; it is a great lesson, a forum, rostrum, pulpit, press, a crying for liberty, and for the abolition of all that degrades, dishonours, and enslaves the race.—Tribune.