The following story and photos are from Giant Panda King's book,
Gotham 1919-1939 by Russall S. Beattie, available from www.giantpandaking.com.
Viewer discretion is advised.
Gotham’s criminals came in a wide range of classes in the 1920s.
At the top, there were mobsters with their large houses, fancy cars, and fine suits.
At the bottom you would find someone like Jervis Tetch. No one quite knows what Jervis’
childhood was like, though some speculate that he had always lived on the streets.
Where most people would struggle with the difficulties it brought, Jervis thrived.
Life on the streets of Gotham was survival of the fittest. You either took what you want,
or it would be taken from you. Jervis was quite good at taking what he wanted.
While he did not have a large house, he would find abandoned buildings and turn
them into his own personal - albeit dirty - mansion. While he did not have nice clothes,
he found tattered suits and other fineries, dressing as best he could. He could almost always
be found wearing a pinstriped suit and a top hat. His impish appearance combined with his choice of
wardrobe earned him the nickname “The Mad Hatter” after the character in the book by Lewis Carroll.
Tetch took a liking to it, and eventually modeled his way of life after it. With time, his desire to
take what he wanted grew. He was now middle-aged and an idea began to formulate in his mind.
There was no shortage of homeless and orphaned children on the streets of Gotham,
and he could take advantage of that. Finding young boys and girls, he would offer them gifts.
He would start off giving them candy, earning their trust and confidence, then move on to other
things like illegal liquor and cigarettes. What he was doing was subtly brainwashing them to be
dependent on him. Eventually, they would crave the liquor or cigarettes and return to him for more.
After they had become dependent on him, Tetch would enlist them into
his child exploitation ring. Even this was modeled after Alice in Wonderland.
He called the boys in his ring “Rabbits,” and the girls “Alices.” All were expected to scavenge and
pickpocket whomever they could. The girls would even be expected to sell themselves.
If they did not bring back a certain amount, they would be punished.
It was a truly horrendous operation, but The Mad Hatter kept it all below the radar of the GCPD.
The cruelties heaped upon these disenfranchised children continued unabated.
The first children to be enlisted in The Mad Hatter’s ring were Dean and David Tweisschor.
The two boys were inseparable, and as they grew into adulthood,
they became the Hatter’s top enforcers. They’d never been good at pickpocketing or stealing,
but they were brutish enough to serve as muscle. As adults,
the children under Mad Hatter’s influence would call them Tweededum and Tweedledee. By all
accounts, they hated those nicknames, and anyone caught using them were given a severe beating.
In spite of this, the nicknames stuck. In 1926, the tables turned on The Mad Hatter.
The best boy thief within Jervis’ ring, desperate to meet his daily quota of stolen goods, tried to
break into the Batmobile. Jason Todd had watched the Bat-Man leave the car parked in an alleyway,
and decided to take a chance. While attempting this, the Bat-Man returned and confronted the boy.
Instead of reprimanding the boy and apprehending him, the Bat-Man was
taken by Jason’s fearlessness. He took the boy in, learning about the Mad Hatter’s exploitation ring.
Just like that, all of Jervis Tetch’s work to stay under the radar was rendered useless.
Since Dick Grayson had left the mantle of Robin behind, Bruce gave it to Jason. Jason
Todd became the second Boy Wonder, and together he and the Bat-Man confronted the Mad Hatter
and took down his operation, freeing the young boys and girls enslaved and dependent on him.
In the ensuing fight between the Bat-Man, Robin, and Tetch’s adult henchmen, the Mad Hatter managed
to escape, along with Tweedledee and Tweedledum. The Gotham Gazette did a piece on Jervis Tetch
and his child exploitation ring, drawing even more attention to the criminal ringleader.
The Mad Hatter had to keep a low profile, as now the entire city was on lookout for him.
His actions caused Gotham’s citizens to be furious at him. Although his operation had fallen apart,
Tetch still had the Tweisschor twins and numerous other small-time rackets.
In Tetch’s mind, all he had to do was wait for the street urchins to come crawling
back to him and his network of pickpockets would resume. Something else happened first.
Dean and David Tweisschor had already become disillusioned with. V Oh my the Mad Hatter.
They’d begun to realize how they’d been manipulated and strung along by the criminal.
The twins were tired of being his enforcers, and wanted more. Tetch had already begun to
lose his touch, aligning his mind more and more with the book character that was his namesake.
The Tweisschor brothers bided their time, and when Tetch was least aware, they struck. While they
were willing to kill him, they couldn’t find it in them to use their brute strength to murder him.
In some twisted sense, this was the man who had raised them. Instead, David and Dean took
advantage of Tetch’s daily teatime, slipping a large dose of rat poison into it. The Mad Hatter,
oblivious to any treachery, fell right into their trap. Tetch never saw it coming, and as he slumped
back in his armchair, his last words were: “I am under no obligation to make sense to you…”
Jervis Tetch’s body was found in his latest abandoned building of a home.
He was picked up by authorities and brought to Gotham Morgue.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum stepped in to take on the Mad Hatter’s rackets.
They did not go as far as to re-enlist the orphaned and homeless children,
but instead formed a pickpocketing ring of adult criminals. It proved to be a
difficult task, and they soon found themselves struggling to fill the Mad Hatter’s shoes.
It was late in 1927 that Two-Face appeared on the crime scene in Gotham.
The Tweisschors joined up in Two-Face’s gang, becoming enforcers for him.
It helped their case that they were twins; Two-Face had an obsession with the number two.
The Mad Hatter, while merely a footnote in Gotham’s criminal history,
was one of the more deplorable. He took advantage of children to achieve his ends,
and felt no remorse for it. Whether or not the Bat-Man helped the situation is widely debated.
He may have helped to bring an end to the Hatter’s child exploitation ring,
but the children still remained on the streets nonetheless.
The one he did save, Jason Todd, ended up dying at the hands of the Joker in 1928.
Jervis Tetch, whatever the case, still left his mark on Gotham. Even today,
you will get dirty looks if you mention Alice in Wonderland to anyone from Gotham City.