Dark Side
Mark Twain once said "everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anyone," and it is obvious that he believed it to be true because of his examples of it in "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg."
The people of Hadleyburg believed that it was the perfect town, free of corruption and problems; Not only were they proven wrong, but, in the process, the man who corrupted Hadleyburg revealed the dark sides of certain people. Among them were the banker and his wife, the minister, and "the nineteeners".
The banker and his wife, to whom the man brought the sack of gold showed their dark sides early on in the story, but they were not persecuted as the other "ninteener" families were. Their dark side was one with greed and dishonesty. When the stranger asked them to keep the sack until the person who helped him came forward, they considered keeping some for themselves, and saying there was less that there really was.
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
Banking DistrictThe stranger told them that the minister would be the one to open the envelope and if the comments matched he would give the sack of gold to the person with the matching statement.
The minister had no congregation, because he did something that offended them. They were going to run him out of town, but the banker warned him, and he was not where they expected him to be, and they let him stay. When the minister was reading the cards to see who's matched, and who would get the gold, he realized that all of the nineteener's had submitted the same, correct comment. He saw it happening and "lost" the envelope belonging to the banker and his wife. It was dishonest, but he felt that he...