Question about Uncle Tom's Cabin

[mikehunt]

I've never read it and saw it on Project Gutenberg so I figure I'll read it
I'm only 40 pages in (according to the pdf I created from the plain text version, not sure how that would compare to a regular hard copy version) and have noticed something. The names of towns and villages are just the first letter and some dashes, like P––––

Did they do some weird editing or was it originally written like that

[Groucho]

A lot of names and places appear like that in literature of the period, even in fiction. It's basically a "names have been changed to protect the innocent" thing.

[mikehunt]

thanks