Kidnapping in Harrisburg.

Harrisburg, Sept. 30 1849.

Friend Douglass:—During the past week a family of five or six persons arrived in this place, from the peculiar, contented, happy, religious, pious and Christian Institution of the South, and feeling themselves secure from the grasp of bloodhouds of the south and north, who are ever ready to scent the track of the flying bondman.

They dismantled themselves of those habiliments by which a fugitive from the peculiar Institution may be known, and set themselves down to rest. They, however, were not permitted to rest in peace.

On Sunday the 29th inst., as one of their number was passing along Front street on the river bank, he was pursued by two men, and after a considerable chase they overtook him, and endeavored to get him to the bridge. Fortunately, two colored men observing the chase, joined the parties, and effected the release of the fugitive, his pursuers making good their escape across the river.

The seizure of a man in open day in one of the most public thoroughfares of the Capital, for the purpose of reducing him to bondage, did, as might be expected, create a considerable excitement among the citizens.

The friends of humanity, understanding that the "slave catchers," on the other side of the river had a considerable force, thought it best to remove the fugitives to a place where they would be secure until [evening when they would be put on] their northern journey. Presuming from what had transpired that an effort would be made to recapture the fugitives in the evening, some twenty-five or thirty persons assembled in the neighborhood where the fugitives were secreted, for the purpose of affording them protection.

The "Constable of the Borough" who it was thought was acting in concert with the slave catchers, came up to the persons who had thus assembled, and ordered them to disperse, as he considered the assemblage unlawful. He was told that they had met there for a peaceable purpose, and that they did not feel inclined to remove until they had that purpose accomplised. Seeing that he could not accomplish his design—he goes and reports his interview with the "Mob,"—as he styled it, to the sheriff, and in short time the sheriff appeard ex officio in propria persona in terrorem. He without inquiring what was the cause of the assemblage, after being informed that it was peaceable, orderly and quiet, commenced together with his posse, without ordering them to disperse, to beat them with their clubs and sticks.

The Colored men retaliated, and the result was that the Sheriff and his posse were entirely vanquished, and not to flight. Not being satisfied with their first adventure and feeling, as they said, that the honor of the community was at stake, they put a wilful falsehood in circulation, that the colored people were assembling in Short Street for the purpose of mobbing the whites. Messengers were dispatched, with this falsehood, to the different grog-shops in town, for the purpose of raising recruits. Failing, however, to procure a sufficient number, by that course of procedure, and, after holding a counsel at the corner of Short Street, they thought it would be necessary to call out the military. Accordingly, a requisition was made on Captain W. Foster for the use of his Company to quell a riotous disposition, that existed among the colored people, in Short Street. The Company, with great alacrity, obeyed the call, and about 11 o'clock other good citizens of the Borough were aroused from their slumber, by the sound of the fife and drum, of Captain W's Company on their way to the scene of the riot, to shoot down, as they said, the d----d niggers. They joined the Sheriff and his party at the corner of Third and Market, and this mob, headed by the constable of the Borough with two large horse pistols, moved boldly forward to the scene of action.

Finding on their arrival that the neighborhood was peaceable, and that there was nothing for them to quell, they commenced beating and knocking the colored men who were standing before their own doors. One man, was knocked down at his own door, and dragged to jail, and on the next morning, was admitted to bail in the sum of one hundred dollars to answer the charge of riot, at the next Criminal Court. Another who was standing as a spectator was knocked down, and kicked and thumped till they got him to prison with the cry of kill the d----d nigger. A third was chased a considerable distance and finding they could not overtake him they fired after him, but fortunately, he escaped unhurt. On Monday morning three arrests were made but the stool pigeons, not being able to prove that they had broken the peace that they had participated in the riot, they were promptly dismissed.

The proceedings of the Sheriff Shell, and his mob are loudly condemned by the respectable portion of the Citizens, and they think he has transcended his duty in this case.

It is generally thought, that the Sheriff and Constable were under instructions from the Slave-catchers, and that their effort to disperse the colored people, was nothing more, than to give the kidnappers a chance to consummate their object. Be this as it may, they and the kidnappers, were entirely frustrated in their design. More of this hereafter.

Yours in the cause of the Slave,

Julius.