The soucouyant, douen and La Di­a­b­lesse have been do­ing the night shift for gen­er­a­tions lo­cal­ly. Now they must com­pete with com­mer­cial hor­ror hous­es, plas­tic skele­tons, bat­tery-op­er­at­ed witch­es and pump­kins. Naipaul would have cast a with­er­ing glance at our “mim­ic men”.

The Amer­i­can-style buck­ets of can­dy have found a will­ing au­di­ence while den­tists mur­mur ap­pre­cia­tive­ly. Of course, I have no ob­jec­tion to the odd block of dark choco­late. This sug­ar-fu­elled sea­son joins a crowd­ed cal­en­dar of birth­day bags, school cel­e­bra­tions laden with piz­za , sweet­ened drinks and the lit­tle some­thing bought be­cause the child be­haved. Fudge, sug­ar cake and our oth­er fa­mil­iar favourites are not the health­i­est of lo­cal snacks.

Bac­te­ria in den­tal plaque use sug­ars to pro­duce acids that at­tack tooth enam­el. A small amount of can­dy eat­en with a meal is gen­er­al­ly kinder to teeth than the same amount picked at through­out the af­ter­noon. Sticky sweets linger.

The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion rec­om­mends keep­ing free sug­ars be­low ten per cent of dai­ly en­er­gy in­take. For a per­son eat­ing 2,000 calo­ries, those fig­ures cor­re­spond to rough­ly 50 grams and 25 grams.

“Free sug­ars” in­clude those added to foods and drinks, as well as sug­ars in hon­ey, syrups and fruit juices. Re­plac­ing can­dy with un­lim­it­ed juice is a risky al­ter­na­tive.

We should not tell chil­dren that one evening’s sweets will “give them di­a­betes”. Type 1 di­a­betes is not caused by eat­ing can­dy. Type 2 di­a­betes de­vel­ops through a com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors in­clud­ing ge­net­ic sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty and ex­cess body fat.

Fright­en­ing chil­dren with a false ex­pla­na­tion helps no­body, in­clud­ing chil­dren al­ready liv­ing with di­a­betes. We can set a lim­it with­out com­ment­ing on a child’s weight or mak­ing them feel guilty for en­joy­ing food.

Give chil­dren a prop­er meal be­fore­hand and agree on a mod­est se­lec­tion of treats. Put the re­main­der away rather than leav­ing an open buck­et with­in reach. Of­fer wa­ter, and keep the usu­al twice-dai­ly brush­ing with tooth­paste. Be­ware of al­ler­gies. Hard sweets and oth­er small or sticky foods can be chok­ing haz­ards for young chil­dren. Small toys of­fered in­stead of can­dy al­so need to suit the child’s age.

A pen­cil, stick­er sheet or small colour­ing book can be a per­fect­ly re­spectable al­ter­na­tive. Par­ents host­ing a par­ty can put games and sto­ry­telling at its cen­tre, with food tak­ing a small­er role.

It has been es­ti­mat­ed that Amer­i­cans spend over US$4.4 bil­lion on Hal­loween dec­o­ra­tions and cos­tumes. Many will be dis­card­ed and con­tribute to en­vi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tion. If chil­dren are out af­ter dark, the or­di­nary haz­ards still ap­ply. Cos­tumes must al­low them to see and walk prop­er­ly. Adults should su­per­vise road cross­ings.

How­ev­er, this Hal­loween of­fers more than a de­bate about sug­ar. Oc­to­ber 31, 2026 marks a hun­dred years since the record­ed death of Har­ry Hou­di­ni. He could es­cape hand­cuffs, locked con­tain­ers and strait­jack­ets. Au­di­ences watched him sus­pend­ed up­side down or ap­par­ent­ly trapped un­der­wa­ter, Then, at 52, he be­came se­ri­ous­ly ill.

The fa­mil­iar sto­ry in­volves a young man de­liv­er­ing sev­er­al blows to Hou­di­ni’s ab­domen in Mon­tre­al af­ter ask­ing about his abil­i­ty to with­stand punch­es. Hou­di­ni con­tin­ued per­form­ing as his con­di­tion de­te­ri­o­rat­ed. He even­tu­al­ly un­der­went surgery and died on Hal­loween.

The ac­cept­ed his­tor­i­cal ac­count de­scribes ap­pen­dici­tis, a rup­tured ap­pen­dix and peri­toni­tis, a dan­ger­ous in­fec­tion in­volv­ing the ab­dom­i­nal lin­ing. Whether the punch­es caused or ag­gra­vat­ed the ill­ness re­mains dis­put­ed.

There is a new book propos­ing a dif­fer­ent se­quence of post­op­er­a­tive events and even chal­leng­ing the record­ed date of death.

We recog­nise the per­son with per­sis­tent pain who in­sists on fin­ish­ing work and re­fus­es sick leave. The rel­a­tive who does not want to both­er any­body and the stodgy chap who mis­takes en­dur­ing a symp­tom for con­trol­ling its cause. There are un­der­stand­able rea­sons for de­lay: ex­pense, fear, work com­mit­ments, trans­port and pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­ences of seek­ing care.

Med­i­cine has its own per­form­ers. The sell­er of a mir­a­cle can­cer cure, the sup­ple­ment ad­ver­tised as a sub­sti­tute for treat­ment, the con­fi­dent stranger ex­plain­ing that every ill­ness comes from one con­ve­nient cause.

Let the chil­dren en­joy their evening and keep an eye on the road. Too much sug­ar is like slow poi­son. When the sweets come home, re­mem­ber that you are al­lowed to close the buck­et