He went on to serve in the Union Army during the Civil War, and after Lincoln was shot by Booth on April 14, 1865, at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., Corbett and his regiment, the 16th New York Cavalry, were sent to track down the gunman, who was on the lam. Corbett, who’d been employed as a hat maker since he was a young man, became a religious zealot and in 1858 castrated himself with a pair of scissors as a way to curb his libido. Researchers have suggested that Boston Corbett, a hat industry worker who killed John Wilkes Booth, President Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, might’ve suffered from poor mental health due to mercury poisoning. In the U.S., the use of mercury in the production of felt finally was banned in the early 1940s. In Connecticut, mercury-induced tremors were called the Danbury shakes, after the city of Danbury, which was a leading center for hat making during the 19th century and into the early years of the 20th century (by the 1920s, only a handful of headwear manufacturers remained in the place once billed as the “Hat Capital of the World”). Workplace safety standards often were lax and prolonged exposure to mercury caused employees to develop a variety of physical and mental ailments, including tremors (dubbed “hatter’s shakes”), speech problems, emotional instability and hallucinations. In the 18th and 19th centuries, industrial workers used a toxic substance, mercury nitrate, as part of the process of turning the fur of small animals, such as rabbits, into felt for hats. Instead, the expression is linked to the hat-making industry and mercury poisoning. However, the phrase “mad as a hatter,” used to describe someone who’s crazy or prone to unpredictable behavior, didn’t originate with Carroll. Some have magic, some don't.Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” famously features an eccentric character called the Hatter, who’s referred to in the story as “mad” and became popularly known as the Mad Hatter. They touch one another, pressing up in a long line of lands. How arrogant are you to think yours is the only one? There are infinite more. ( about his hat) Now, get it to work.Įmma Swan: Here's the thing, Jefferson – this is it. You know what the issue is with this world? Everyone wants some magical solution for their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic. Mad Hatter: And storybooks are based on what? Imagination? Where does that come from? It has to come from somewhere. Mad Hatter: How? Did you read about it, perchance, in a book? How is that any less real than any other book?Įmma Swan: History books are based on history. What's a story? When you were in high school, did you learn about the Civil War? The Mad Hatter is in Alice in Wonderland – a book. You've clearly glommed onto my kid Henry's thing. You think you're the Mad Hatter.Įmma Swan: Okay. Magic.Įmma Swan: Because you're talking about magic.Įmma Swan: The hats, the tea, your psychotic behavior. You brought something precious to Storybrooke. You see, I know what you refuse to acknowledge, Emma. Until one night, you, in your little yellow bug roll into town, and the clock ticks, and things start to change. Mad Hatter: Because, for the last twenty-eight years, I've been stuck in this house. Maybe, if you knew what I know, you wouldn't.Įmma Swan: Why have you been spying on me? Mad Hatter: Henry? You mean the Queen's father?Įmma Swan: Henry, the mayor's adopted kid. All except you.Įmma Swan: Have you been reading Henry's book? Mad Hatter: The one keeping us all trapped. Mad Hatter: We both know what happens when people try to leave Storybrooke.
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