Mark Twain's novella, for all its humor, is a melancholy discourse on human frailty. The title is ironic, because Hadleyburg has actually not been corrupted by the mysterious stranger. It was, in fact, corrupt to begin with.
The central hypocrisy of the town lies in its complacent perception of itself. When the Richardses are trying to figure out who did the good deed of giving the stranger the twenty dollars, they conclude it must have been Barclay Goodson, because no one else in the town would have done it—in other words, everyone else was too ungenerous. And Goodson was the most hated man in Hadleyburg, except for the Reverend Burgess. The minister is hated for having committed some indiscretion; Mr. Richards is the only one who knew Burgess to be innocent, but he kept this knowledge to himself out of cowardice. As Richards confesses on his death bed,
You know the thing that was charged against Burgess years ago. My testimony, and mine alone, could have cleared him, and I was a coward, and left him to suffer disgrace—
Yet Richards is outwardly presented in Mark Twain's narrative as if he is still a kind of exemplar of virtue, at least in comparison with the rest of the town. It's significant that the most hypocritical thing about Richards is his having destroyed the relationship between Goodson and his fiancee, Nancy Hewitt, by revealing that Nancy has partial African American ancestry. The information is given to us almost in passing, but it is typical of Mark Twain's understated criticisms of America's hypocrisy about race. Richards seems to look back at this, without irony, as a "good deed" for which Goodson has been grateful to him.
Perhaps the saddest thing in the entire story is that the elderly Richardses really are, in spite of their own faults, more deserving than anyone else in the town of the "reward" represented by the sack of gold-painted lead coins. The bogus nature of this fortune is emblematic of Hadleyburg's hypocrisy and of the meaninglessness of the material wealth this most "honest and upright town in all the region" has obsessed over.
The sanctimonious tone with which the incorruptible reputation of Hadleyburg is established at the beginning of the story makes it clear that its people cannot be or cannot remain as honest as they appear. When Mary and Edward Richards are discussing who could have given the stranger $20, they both agree that the only person charitable enough to do so was Barclay Goodson, who was hated in Hadleyburg because he was honest about the community's faults. Edward then reveals that the only other man hated as much as Goodson, the Reverend Burgess, was wrongly accused in a matter when Edward knew he was innocent, but was too cowardly to declare it. Hypocrisy was obviously present in Hadleyburg long before the bag of gold arrived there.
The hypocrisy of eighteen of the claimants to the gold is made public in part III of the story, when the Reverend Burgess reveals the false basis of their claims. The actual message in the bag is rather ingenious, since no loyal citizen of Hadleyburg would wish to be caught comparing the town unfavorably with Hell. Therefore, even if anyone had been able to produce the entire remark, s/he would have been marked out as hypocritical for describing the town in this way while pretending to be proud of its honesty. Mary and Edward are hypocritical in exactly the same way as Edward was when he failed to clear the name of the Reverend Burgess, through silence. Later, however, they renounce their hypocrisy, which has been making them anxious and unwell, confessing their guilt and failing to cash the checks the stranger gives them as a result of their deception.
A good portion of The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, by Mark Twain, is centered around exposing hypocrisy. The people of Hadleyburg pride themselves on being upright citizens, unable to be corrupted. There are nineteen couples/families who are considered the "principal citizens" of the town, and they all think themselves to be the most morally upstanding people you could find.
However, in pursuit of the stranger's gold, each and every single member of those nineteen couples becomes a hypocrite. They all claim to be incorruptible and to never give in to temptation. But when the stranger gives each of them the opportunity to lie in order to achieve great wealth, not a single one of them turns down the chance—this makes them hypocrites. Each couple is exposed for their hypocrisy, except for the Richards, who essentially die of extreme anxiety and guilt, thinking that their fellow townspeople know about their dishonesty.
Edward Richards was also a hypocrite at a point before the story starts—Burgess was accused of something he did not do (we never learn the specifics of the accusation), and Edward knew he was innocent. Despite his claims of being an entirely honest man, Edward did not defend Burgess, fearing disapproval from others.
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