A. They all tell tales of the path from mistrust to corruption.

In 1879, Harper's Monthly published Mark Twain's wry tale The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg -- a dark, cynical sketch of a town whose pride rested on its reputation for incorruptibility. A stranger manipulates that pride into corruption, and makes the town the cause of its own ruin.

The Wikipedia summary makes for eerie reading in these...