The Wrong Man — page 61: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHAPTER X. THE BEGINNING OF THE END. And questi thie oa mplood iece of m ‘ To know it farther. Macagta. ee Yne village of Adrianopolis, like many towns of the West, ~ ‘een laid out on a scale of grandeur which must often have icited a smile from those who passed through it during the first years of its existence. One who looked at a map of its lan, and saw noted there, in large capitals, Public Square, City all, College Place, Avenue IL, Avenue IL, ete., must have found some difficulty in persuading himself that this was really intended as an outline of the little scattered hamlet we are now about to describe. Bat as he who gains a battle, though b meaus which ought to have insured defeat, isa great General, so not a few of the visionary schemers and extravagant specula- tors who sought to be founders of greatcities in the West, have earned a reputation for wisdom and foresight by those very pro- jects which, when they were framed, excited the derision of all sensible men. This remark applies to Adriavopolis. All the views of its founder, to be sure, are even yet not real- 3 ; but the disparity between the plan and the reality is so = diminished, as at least to deprive one of all just ground , - d aN =P ot .? uty ea © rw wits 7 aed : =F At the date of our story, however, Adriarspolis was in its in- fancy. Tle town consisted of a few houses, most of them log- cabins of the humblest description, which straggled at ica ralur intervals on either side of a wide road, called Main street by way of distinction, though there was no other. these lowly edifices, there were some of a more ambi- appearance, One of them, a stately but uafinished brick- house, displayed upon its front the word BANK, denoting that that it was one of those manufactories of s paper substitute for money, which became so numerous in the western country & few years after, and from the evil effects of whose ove--isues — of that country were long in recovering. In an- other place there was a row of some five or six houscs, likewise ot brick, none of which seemed finished, and a part uninhabited, while others were hastening to decay trom being ocenpied by —— of a description greatly inferior to that of the buildings. > = - ‘Was an uncomfortable air of newness about every thing ‘fhe smoke of brick-kilns mingled with that of the houses thay 7 . "ed 4 . 4 —_— comicbooks:co (|