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After nearly 90 years, the Des Moines metro area has ended its Beggars' Night tradition of trick-or-treating on Oct. 30.

The change was prompted by a weather-forced move to Halloween last year, which proved popular with residents in subsequent surveys.

Beggars' Night began in 1938 as a way to curb widespread Halloween vandalism by having children perform a joke or song for candy the day before.

On the morning after Halloween 1938, the Des Moines Register ran a grim tally: 550 vandalism calls in a single night, with teens soaping windows, derailing streetcars and hurling bricks at homes.

Out of that chaos came order — Beggars’ Night. Starting the next year, trick-or-treating was moved to Oct. 30, the night before Halloween, when children were told to trade pranks fo

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