Why Do We Trick or Treat? The Bribe Behind the Doorbell

Why Do We Trick or Treat? The Bribe Behind the Doorbell

We trick or treat because, for most of its history, the treat was a payment. In 17th-century Shropshire a soul cake bought a prayer for the dead, in 1917 Ontario a coin bought a house immunity from pranks, and in 1933 a California editor told readers to keep jellybeans handy "to bribe off the witches". Towns then turned that bargain into a supervised children's round, and church groups borrowed it for charity from 1950.

The bargain still works at one door. On SubhSandesh, 90.9% of started greeting pages are published and shared, and 38.5% of creators add a password before sending, which makes each one a private treat for one person. Below: four bargains that kept the knock alive, two claims the usual history gets wrong, and what a sociologist found when he counted poisoned-candy reports across 68 Halloweens.

What is trick-or-treating?

Trick-or-treating is the custom of children going door to door in costume on the evening of 31 October, saying "trick or treat" and receiving sweets, with a prank as the implied penalty for a closed door. In 2026 it falls on Saturday 31 October, and in 2027 on Sunday 31 October.

It bundles older parts: a begging round, a disguise and a bargain. Scottish guising supplied the disguise and the party piece. The bargain, the treat as payment, has the clearest paper trail and is the part most histories skip.

Four bargains that kept children knocking

Each bargain gets the same fields: when, who knocked, what the household paid for, and the record we read.

1. Souling: a cake for a prayer

When: described in the 1600s and still alive in the 1880s. Who knocked: poor children, and sometimes men, in Shropshire and its neighbours, on All Saints' and All Souls' days (1 and 2 November). What it paid for: prayers for the household's dead.

The record: Charlotte Burne's Shropshire Folk-Lore (1883–86), pages 381 to 382, quotes the antiquary John Aubrey seeing "a high heap of Soule-cakes" set out on 2 November, with the rhyme "Have mercy on all Christen soules for a soule-cake". Burne notes the rhyme had "lost its religious form" by her day.

Two details in Burne rarely make the summaries. Money and apples had become "the usual rewards", and a house that ignored the singers heard them chant through the keyhole: "Soul, soul! a lump of coal!" The threat was already in the song.

2. Protection: a treat so the house is spared

When: 1917 to the early 1930s. Who knocked: gangs of children and teenagers in Canada, then the US. What it paid for: no soaped windows, no missing gate.

The record: the Dictionary of Canadianisms entry for "trick or treat" (DCHP-3, University of British Columbia, revised 2025) quotes the Sault Star of 1 November 1917: a householder who "passed out the 'coin' for the 'treats'" found his house "immune from attack until another gang came along".

Sixteen years later it still needed explaining. The Imperial Valley Press of El Centro, California, 31 October 1933, admitted being caught "flat-footed" the first time it heard the threat, translated it as "if you don't give us a treat we will play a trick on you", and advised keeping jellybeans, doughnuts or cake "to bribe off the witches". The pranksters of his youth, he added, never asked for a treat; they pushed a cow onto the porch.

3. Redirection: a town buys a quiet night

When: the late 1930s and the war years. Who knocked: schoolchildren steered by mayors, schools and churches. What it paid for: a night without damage.

The record: the Hardin Tribune-Herald of Montana, 29 October 1942, reported Mayor Carl Rankin's plan for "a patriotic stunt" in place of "the usual destructive pranks". Children paid for wieners and buns at the salvage depot with tin cans or scrap, then rang doorbells and, "instead of saying 'tricks or treats'", reminded people to save tin cans, scrap metal, rubber, rags, rope and fats.

The mayor was not inventing a custom. He was redirecting one that Hardin's children already practised, a sign that by 1942 the doorbell round was routine even in a small Montana town.

4. Charity: the treat goes to someone else

When: from 1950. Who knocked: church youth groups in small US towns. What it paid for: milk and medicine for children abroad.

The record: the Bluffton News of Ohio, 26 October 1950, reported the Westminster Fellowship of the First Presbyterian church making Halloween rounds with posters and decorated milk cartons. Their call was not "tricks or treats" but "tricks or treats for all the world's children thru UNICEF".

The usual story credits a Philadelphia family in 1950. UNICEF USA's history page blocks automated readers, so treat the Ohio report as proof the charity round existed in 1950, not of who started it.

Two claims the usual history gets wrong

Both appear on pages ranking for this question, and both fail against records from 1917 to 1944.

"Nobody knows where the phrase was coined"

One leading history page still says it is unknown where and when "trick or treat" was coined, and offers a 1951 Peanuts strip as proof the custom had arrived. The DCHP-3 entry labels the phrase Canadian in origin, with dated forms: "tricks or treats" at Sault Ste. Marie in 1917, "treat or trick" at Owen Sound in 1917, "Treat up -- or tricks" in Edmonton in 1924, and today's exact wording in a 1927 report from Blackie, Alberta.

So the phrase dates to 1917 with the plural, or 1927 in today's word order.

"The war stopped it"

The common account says wartime sugar rationing curtailed trick-or-treating until the baby boom. The newspapers we opened show it shrinking, not stopping. Hardin's mayor assumed in 1942 that children would be saying "tricks or treats", and the Kodiak Mirror of Alaska ran the headline "Tonight's The Night Of Trick Or Treat" on 31 October 1942.

Montana's Harlem News of 5 November 1943 reported "a few 'trick or treat' bands" out in the mud, and the Carbon County News of Red Lodge, 2 November 1944, described grade-school children doing "tricks or treats" in costume, carrying jack-o'-lanterns and "a bar of soap". Sugar was scarce; the knock was not.

Trick-or-treating's four bargains compared

The table compares the four bargains by the earliest record we read for each.

The takeaway: the knocker's side kept changing, from a prayer to a promise to a cause, while the household's side stayed a small treat.

The poisoned-candy scare: what one sociologist counted

The fear that strangers poison trick-or-treat sweets is a contemporary legend, a story told as true with little evidence behind it. Joel Best and Horiuchi, then his undergraduate student, made the case in Social Problems in 1985, after reviewing the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Fresno Bee for 1958 to 1984. Their abstract says the threat "has been greatly exaggerated" and that the legend emerged in the early 1970s, voicing fears about child safety and crime.

Best has kept counting. His running tally, Halloween Sadism: The Evidence, revised each autumn; the copy we read is dated November 2025, lists 134 reported incidents in the US and Canada from 1958 to 2025, peaking at 14 in 1971 and 12 in 1982, the autumn after the Tylenol poisonings. He writes that he has been unable to find a substantiated case of a child killed or seriously injured by a contaminated treat picked up while trick-or-treating.

The deaths blamed on strangers had other causes. A five-year-old in Detroit in 1970 had found heroin in a relative's home, and an eight-year-old in Pasadena, Texas, in 1974 was poisoned by his own father, who had insured his life. Best also cites a 2022 survey in which 84% of Canadians went through their children's treats, and 71% looked for razor blades.

Sending one person a trick-or-treat

Every bargain above is an exchange between one door and one visitor, the one part of the custom a link can copy. Pages on SubhSandesh are viewed 11.1 times each on average, so a treat sent this way tends to be revisited after the night itself.

The interactive Halloween card where they knock three times and choose trick or treat takes about 5 minutes to make. It holds up to six photos and a letter they read by flashlight, and along the way they choose trick or treat and catch falling sweets. Its closing question, "Will you be my boo?", has a No button that runs away, so use partner mode only with someone whose yes you already have, or switch to bestie, family or kids.

The cinematic page with a trick-or-treat bag of candies and a voice note takes about 10 minutes. Each candy hides a sweet line or a cute dare, and the page adds up to 12 photos, a voice note up to 60 seconds, an optional unlock time and a reply box. For a friend far away who would rather hear they are missed than get a Halloween card, the miss-you page with open-when letters fits better.

When a link is the wrong treat

A child on your doorstep wants a real sweet in a real bucket, and no page replaces that. Both pages are one-person greetings in English, not party invitations for a crowd.

Nor does this page settle every date: the 1917 clippings are quoted through the DCHP-3, not read on microfilm, and the Philadelphia UNICEF story is unchecked.

Sources

• Charlotte S. Burne (ed.), Shropshire Folk-Lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings, 1883–86, pages 381 to 382.
• DCHP-3: A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, "trick or treat", University of British Columbia, revised 2025.
• Imperial Valley Press (El Centro, California), 31 October 1933, page 4, Chronicling America.
• Hardin Tribune-Herald (Montana), 29 October 1942, page 1, Chronicling America.
• The Bluffton News (Ohio), 26 October 1950, page 5, Chronicling America.
• Joel Best, Halloween Sadism: The Evidence, University of Delaware, revised November 2025.