Wearing a hat can make you a bit mad. Or so tradition has it, and British royalty are known to be sticklers for tradition. The felt hat industry has been traced to the mid seventeenth- century in France, and it likely migrated into England around 1830. The upper crust of British society has long been assumed to be a bit looney… A story passed down in the hat industry gives this account of how mercury came to be used in the process of making hats : In Turkey camel hair was used for felt material, and it was discovered that the felting process was speeded up if the fibers were moistened with camel urine. It is said that in France,in the absence of camels, workmen used their own urine, but one particular workman seemed consistently to produce a superior felt.
Monty Python. The Silly Walk. John Cleese
This craftsman had an active sex life, even promiscuous, was being treated with a mercury compound for a serious case of syphilis. An association was then established between mercury treatment of the fibers and an improved felt. Eventually the use of solutions of mercuric nitrate was widespread in the felt industry, and mercury poisoning became endemic, particularly linked to the toxic vapors. Dementia and erethism were indeed a common ailment among nineteenth century hatmakers.
Charles Pachter. Dressage. 1988
The crazy Mad Hatter of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is becoming widely associated with the effects of Mercury on behavior as well as physiology. Mercury use was pervasive in processnig the felt hats used in England around Lewis’ time. Erratic, flamboyant behavior was one of the most evident alterations caused by mercury; others included excessive drooling, mood swings, and spasmodic movements among other less endearing characteristics.
But Lewis Carroll did not invent the phrase, although he did create the character. The phrases ‘mad as a hatter’ and “mad as a March hare” were common at the time Lewis Carroll wrote the first publication of Alice in 1865. The phrase had been in common use in 1837, almost 30 years earlier.
''What we must retain here is the symbolism Monarch project engendered and its use in mass media. Monarch is a type of butterfly and became the ultimate “insider’s”symbol of mind control. Symbolism surrounding Lady Gaga, in her pictures and videos, mixes those symbols with occultism of secret societies.. Her vacuous, robotic and slightly degenerate persona embodies all the “symptoms” of a mind control victim.''
The earliest mention of a ‘mad hatter’ appears to refer to one Robert Crab, a seventeenth-century , highly eccentric noble living at Chesham, England. He gave all his goods to the poor and lived on dock leaves and grass. Carroll, however, seems to have based his mad hatter not on Robert Crab, but on a certain Theophilus Carter, not a hatter but a furniture dealer, who was known locally as the Mad Hatter, partly because he always wore a top hat, and partly because he was eccentric, eclectic and produced some wacky inventions.
Guests at the Royal Ascot ''This is what not to wear or do, in front of Her Majesty... No miniskirts No bare legs No strapless dresses No shoulder straps less than inch wide No bosoms falling out of dresses No trousers unless they match the jacket ( no jeans in other words ! ) No streaky fake tans No chewing of gum No swigging out of champagne bottles No chatting on mobiles No generally Chavvy behaviour... and last but definitely not least, ( and this one gave me a laugh)... Knickers must be worn but not seen !!''
” Makers of felt hats would inexplicably often drool, tremble, talk to themselves and have bouts of severe paranoia, for reasons that only became clear later.Clinical tests showed victims developed severe and uncontrollable muscular tremors and twitching limbs, called ‘hatter’s shakes’; other symptoms included distorted vision and confused speech. Advanced cases developed hallucinations and other psychotic symptoms. Both in Europe and North America they were the eccentrics and madmen of the clothing trades, which gave rise to the phrase as used today.”
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Charles Pachter.
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