Adam Baran

When I was a kid, Halloween didn’t scare me at all. The scariest night was the night before Halloween, known as Cabbage Night. Cabbage Night, or Mischief Night, Devil’s Night, or Goosey Night as it’s known in other parts of America and England, was the night when all the bullies and bad kids would run around the neighborhood toilet papering houses, throwing eggs, soaping up windows, spraying silly string everywhere, and all as the neighborhood looked on amused to see their little baby shit-kickers learning how to well, shit-kick. I was always scared of bullies, so I always imagined that the ones I was particularly afraid of would come to my house to get me. That was more scary than any boogeyman or Freddy Krueger or even Pennywise the Clown. I would sit near my window, and at any noise or kids screaming down the street I would imaging the horrors of seeing my house covered in toilet paper.

So tonight I’m having a get together at my place to reclaim Cabbage Night for the queers and the bullied. Aside from an Amy Sedaris ghost cake, cocktail franks, and very likely a Halloween game of Apples to Apples, or a Mummy contest like we used to have at camp, I’m going to try and motivate everyone to go toilet paper the hideous Lower East Side high rises like the Blue Building and the Rivington Hotel, and the people stupid enough to wait in the line outside Fat Baby and Pianos. Think we can get it done? I hope so.

Here’s more on this horrible holiday from Wikipedia:

Mischief night is a tradition in northern England, Scotland, Ireland, and the United States of a night in the calendar when the custom is for preteens and teenagers to take a degree of licence to play pranks and do mischief to their neighbours.

Traditional practice

Until the nineteenth century it was celebrated at Halloween (31 October and the eve of winter ) or , May Eve (30 April and the eve of summer). Shrove Monday (i.e. the night before Shrove Tuesday and known as Nickanan night in Cornwall and Dappy-Door night in Devon) was also celebrated in this way in some places. In some localities, notably Yorkshire, it occurred on the night before Guy Fawkes Night ( 4 November ) but there are no records of this date being celebrated before the late nineteenth century and it is assumed that festivities were transferred there from the much older folk festivals. ^[1]

Traditional mischiefs done on this night were:-

• Knocking and tapping on doors and windows (Knock down ginger)
• Daubing objects with paint and whitewash
• Smearing of doorknobs with treacle
• “Egging”, throwing eggs at homes or cars
• “T.P.-ing”, taking rolls of toilet paper and draping them over trees or homes, etc.
• Tying together adjacent door handles to prevent either from opening
• Removing gates from their hinges and depositing them elsewhere
• Lighting of fires in drainpipes to produce an organ-pipe-like sound
• Placing slices of bologna to get the paint off cars
• Placing forks in neighbors yards

Contemporary practice

The custom survives but often merged with the American Trick or Treat.

In Yorkshire it is also known as Miggy Night, Goosey Night, Tick-Tack night, Corn night, Trick night. In Liverpool UK, it is known as Mizzie Night (but unlike in Yorkshire, it is celebrated on October 30th)

Mischief night is becoming popular in Ireland, where teenagers get the week around Halloween off school. This means that many of the nights running up to October 31 are used by teenagers for acts of minor vandalism.

In the Midwestern U.S. and Eastern U.S., it is also known as Cabbage night, the Philadelphia Region referred to the night before as “Soap Night” where mischievous teens “practiced” by soaping car windows, and in the Northeastern United States as Goosey Night and Doorbell Night. always on the evening of October 30, the eve of Halloween. Detroit’s Devil’s Night tradition includes vandalism and arson, along with more harmless pranks.

It is known as Gate Night in Winnipeg, Canada and as Mat Night in Quebec, Canada, always on the October 30, the eve of Halloween.

In Camden, New Jersey, Mischief Night had escalated to the point where widespread arsons were committed in the 1990’s. Over 130 arsons were committed in that city on the night of October 30, 1991.

Modern tricks are toilet papering yards and buildings, powder-bombing and egging cars and people and homes, using soap to write on windows, “forking” yards, setting off consumer fireworks, and smashing pumpkins and jack-o’-lanterns. Occasionally though, the damage can include the more serious spray-painting of buildings and homes, and shooting people and things with paintball guns.

In New York, called “Cabbage Night”, children resort to all of the prior stunts, as well as using moldy food such as cabbages to throw at homes. Also, bags of feces are set on porches and lit on fire, so that when the pranksters knock on the door, the recipient stamps out the bag- and covers their shoe in undesired feces. Less vandalous though, is the ever-popular “ding-dong-ditch”: in this ‘game’, people ring doorbells, then run and hide somewhere nearby.