Excerpt from an article in the New York Herald, November 1, 1888. It reads: IT WAS HALLOWEEN. The streets were White with Flour and So were Many Citizens -- Fun for the Boys. The streets of New York, particularly in the tenement districts, were literally white with flour last night. For many blocks it was absolutely impossible to find a square foot of street or sidewalk free from it. At every corner was a group of boys and girls, each with a stocking partly filled with flour, and each alert to find some well-dressed youngster to make a victim of. It was a dangerous thing for even a well-dressed man, if he valued his appearance, to pass some of these groups, for he was pretty sure to be whacked on the back by one or more of the flour-distributing stockings. No amount of scrubbing with soap would have whitened the youngsters themselves as they were whitened last night.