Trick or Treat (1938)

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 08:53 PM 10/16/2003 -0400, you wrote:

>    The ProQuest LOS ANGELES TIMES is now at July 1939, and not a moment
> too soon for Halloween is perhaps the origin of "trick or treat."
>    It's a little long, but I'll type the whole thing.
>
>HALLOWEEN PRANKS PLOTTED BY YOUNGSTERS OF SOUTHLAND
>               Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File).       Los Angeles,
> Calif.: Oct 30, 1938.                   p. A8 (1 page):
>_GETTING IN PRACTICE FOR NIGHT OF FUN_
>(Photo--ed.)
>(Photo caption--ed.)  Elio Martini, left, and Wendy Rough tie bicycle to
>post as prelude to Halloween.
>_HALLOWEEN PRANKS PLOTTED_
>_BY YOUNGSTERS OF SOUTHLAND_
>    "Trick or treat!" is the Halloween hijacking game hundreds of Southern
> California youngsters will play tomorrow night as they practice
> streamlined versions of traditional Allhallows Eve pranks.
>    The preparations are simple: a bar of soap, some old films and a
> couple of Times funny papers clipped into confetti.  From house to house
> the boys and girls will travel, punching doorbells with nerve-jangling peals.
>_TINY GOON SQUAD_
>    "Trick or treat!" is the terse command as the householder peeks warily
> around the door.  "If you don't give us something, we'll play a trick on
> you.  You wouldn't want your porch littered with paper, or your windows
> soaped, or a smelly roll of burning film left around, would you?"
>    So the diminutive Halloween goon squads are bought off with cookies,
> candy, tickless alarm clocks or the price of an ice cream cone.
>_SIGNBOARDS TARGET_
>    With election but a week away it will be a field night for the
> Halloween billboard artists.  The more subtle pranksters already have
> spotted all the wind socks in their vicinity and are stuffing shirts with
> rumpled papers, ready to be judiciously affixed to candidates'
> signboards.  Where no wind socks are available, a well blown-up paper bag
> will make an acceptable substitute.  Less imaginative of the costumed
> prowlers Monday night will be content to change the benign expressions of
> the pictured candidates with ferocious mustaches and beetle-browed frowns.
>_FEW GATES LEFT_
>    Although there are few gates available for modern city boys to perch
> on rooftops, loose kiddie cars and motor scooters can be hitched to
> doorknobs, trash baskets can be emptied on front lawns and flower pots
> can appear on chimneys.  Portable (Next column--ed.) signs that unwary
> filling station proprietors forget to take in always make good
> decorations for streetcars and city halls.
>    The automobile will be subjected to unusual hazards Halloween
> night.  If the windows escape a few "nerts" and "foos" scrawled in soap
> or paraffin, the owner is sure to find a shirt clothespinned to the radio
> aerial or a stack of tin cans tied on the axle.
>_DUMMIES PREPARED_
>    Of course, Halloween funsters are even now fixing lifelike dummies to
> be placed on busy thoroughfares just to give motorists a bad half-minute
> or to send police with sirens screaming to "investigate a dead body."
>    Pumpkins will never lose their appeal for the very young at Halloween
> time.  Although some of the jack-o'-lanterns now are lighted with
> flashlights and even wired for sound, most of the faces stick to the
> traditional toothy grins and triangles for eyes and noses.
>    It's a grumpy citizen indeed that won't be frightened into shrieks at
> the appearance of a little imp on Halloween night, attired in a spooky
> costume and carrying a lighted pumpkin and a rattling chain.
>
>
>("Nerts" and "foos"?...Greenwich Village has a big party.  For something
>really scary, dress up as a Chicago Cub--ed.)

I was also intrigued by "hijacking" and "goons"???