These days, Halloween seems to kick off sometime just after Labor Day and drags on into the first week of November when the seasonal candy goes on sale and the fake spider webs sag under a load of soggy fallen leaves. In the old days, however, Halloween was restricted to two or three nights and the emphasis was on “trick” rather than “treat.” The Cincinnati Post [27 October 1922] carried the schedule for St. Marys, Ohio:
“Mayor W.H. Swift and Tony Johns, police chief, say the boys can have a good time on these nights if they don’t destroy property. Oct. 29 is to be ‘Cabbage Night;’ Oct. 30, ‘Corn Night;’ and Oct. 31, Hallowe’en.”
Let us, for the moment, leave aside the fact that this invitation was addressed only to boys, and focus on those additional nights. What was Cabbage Night? What was Corn Night? And, depending on where you lived in the United States, what was Gate Night, Goosey Night, Devil’s Night, Tick-Tack Night, Mischief Night, Beggars Night, Trick Night and Damage Night?
Donald E. Weaver, assistant city editor of the Cincinnati Post, explained Corn Night in a reminiscence published on Halloween 1930: “Corn Night was the last night before Halloween. The kids threw shelled corn against the windows, rang doorbells and soaped a few windows.”
Weaver describes a ritual week of various mischief-breeding nights, beginning with Tick-Tack Night and ending with Halloween. A Tick-Tack (or Tic-Tac) had nothing to do with bad breath. It was a device built around one of Mom’s old sewing spools, screwed onto a long stick so that, when the miscreant pulled a string wrapped around the spool, it sounded like someone rapping on the window. It was the same principle as Corn Night, only louder.
Gate Night is somewhat self-explanatory when you picture the bygone neighborhoods of yesteryear, each little yard surrounded by a picket fence. As Weaver explained: “The next morning was apt to find Squire Hickey’s gate hangin’ from the belfry of the Town Hall.”
Goosey Night wasn’t much celebrated in these parts, being almost entirely confined to the New York and New England region. The origin of the name is disputed, but most authorities believe it has nothing to do with poultry, and more to do with ghosts. It was a night devoted to scaring nocturnal pedestrians with noisemakers and eerie lanterns.
Mischief Night and Trick Night pretty much define themselves. Nights carrying those formal names were mostly celebrated eastward from here, but the spirit spread throughout the Cincinnati area, as Editor Weaver recalled:
“Widow Green’s cow got so used to being put queer places on Halloween she didn’t seem to mind. But Widow Green, she took on somethin’ terrible, especially the time the boys crowded Flossie into Biddy Harmon’s henhouse, ‘cause Widow Green and Biddy hadn’t spoken for years.”
Cincinnati lies at the southern fringe of an area in which Devil’s Night is observed. The real hotbed of Devil’s Night activity is in Michigan, especially around Detroit where, in some years, the riot squad had to be called out to quell disturbances that fell just shy of urban warfare.
So, how did cabbages get mixed up in all this rowdy mischief? To explain, we must return to the question of gender discrimination and the nefarious suppression of women by the patriarchy. While their brothers and potential boyfriends were out soaping windows and stealing gates, in other words, “having fun,” proper young ladies observed Halloween by attempting to determine who would become their future husbands.
One guaranteed method involved cabbages. Don Weaver, apparently ignorant of the matrimonial aspects of the family Brassicaceae, reports only on the mischievous aftereffects of the cabbage ritual:
“The next night after Tick-Tack Night was Cabbage Night, when they swiped what cabbages were left in the gardens, and tossed ‘em onto front porches.”
Not so fast, Donny Boy! Way back in 1875, a correspondent to the Cincinnati Times, who signed his article only with the penname “Nepenthe,” gave the real story:
“Imagine the young belles of our city arrayed in their most-tied-backest evening suit en traine, and the beaux in their lavenderest pants, spotless diamond decked shirt-fronts, and faultless swallow-tailed coats, tripping out into the nearest Mill Creek garden, groping about among the protecting fodder for a cabbage-stalk, which, upon being brought under the gaslight, will presage by its crookedness or straightness the character of their future life-partners.”
Having done its vegetative duty as a marriage predictor, of what use was the clairvoyant cabbage? Hence it was tossed upon the nearest porch, or the porch of one’s prospective father-in-law, perhaps.
Another scrying technique, employed by boys and girls involved three bowls. One was filled with clear water, another with either mud or ashes, and the third left empty. The three receptacles were laid out in a row on a table, the subject blindfolded and the bowls reordered repeatedly. The visually impaired supplicant then felt for a bowl and plunged his or her fingers into it. If they splashed clear water, they would marry a virginal spouse. If they touched the mud or ashes, they would marry a widow or widower. If they found the empty bowl, a lifetime of spinsterhood or bachelorhood awaited.
Why did these antique celebrations fade away? One reason is certainly the expansion of the Halloween season. It was rare, well into the 1950s, for adults to take any part in Halloween festivities. This was a spooky holiday for children only. The very idea of a “sexy nurse” costume was inconceivable. Pop-up Halloween stores that open shop before the Autumn Equinox are very much a modern development.
But the main reason these “mischief nights” are no longer commemorated has to do with active police suppression. During the 1930s, Cabbage Night destruction got completely out-of-hand. The Cincinnati Post [31 October 1940] reported incidents from the night before involving flaming barricades blocking streets and tying up traffic, tool sheds being set ablaze, gangs of ruffians driving around firing rifles at windows in occupied houses, all the windows of a school being broken, piles of garbage filling alleys, multiple cases of flat tires, and dozens of fist fights.
The 1960s brought escalated mayhem as “Mischief Night” evolved into “Damage Night.” The Enquirer reported several outrageous incidents the night before Halloween in 1963, including two serious grass fires in Indian Hill and a foot-deep crater blasted in the Kyles Lane entrance to I-75. In 1986, 59 automobiles had their tires punctured by Damage Night vandals in Brentwood. In other words, the stuff your parents described as “good, clean fun.”
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