NEWS LITE : RESTRAINED TREATERS PASS TRICK TEST.

Batman is a pig.

He grabbed a handful of Butterfingers, nearly cleaning out the bowl. A genie did the same. So did a boy on in-line skates dressed as Jason from ``Friday the 13th.''

The Butterfingers never stood a chance. Neither did the bowl of KitKats. But you'd be surprised what children will do when confronted with the opportunity for free candy. Most of them - scary as it seems - have a conscience.

The instructions were simple. On the front porch, near a closed door, atop a table decorated with paper ghosts and a glowing pumpkin, was a handwritten sign: ``Happy Halloween. Take ONE please. Save some for the other kids.''

Then there was a big bowl of candy.

Unattended.

Halloween is a big candy grab and the Redding, Calif., house was loaded and ready with 11 pounds of candy. Tiger Pops, Sweet Tarts, Super Bubble, Nerds, Lollies, Tootsie Rolls, Fizzers, Peanut Butter Kisses, Butterfingers, KitKats and, of course, Monster Munny.

The early birds got first crack at the Tootsie Rolls. It was orderly. It was polite. It was stunning. Children read the sign and tentatively dug into the bowl. Some would grab two at first, then guilt or something would set in.

A half-hour into the social experiment, conducted from a dark room near the porch, only one child had taken more than one Tootsie Roll. One boy took two. Minor damage. Tootsie Rolls are small.

Of course, most of the early arrivals had their parents waiting on the sidewalk. It's easier to be honest when Mom or Dad is within shoe-throwing distance.

Finally, the junior high school kids started showing up. Junior high students are too cool to go trick-or-treating with their parents, so there was a chance at candy mayhem.

``Whoa, look at that,'' said one ghoul in a rubber mask. `` `Happy Halloween.' Take one please.'' He grabbed a whole handful. Then he put it back. ``Just kidding,'' he said to his friend, a baseball player.

Too nice. There were even some trick-or-treaters who warned the others, ``Don't walk on the landscaping.''

Another Jason (Jasons are still ubiquitous on Halloween) took three and a friend scolded him with a ``You're mean.'' A hockey player complained to a hobo: ``It said take one, not two.''

Four girls - a Raggedy Ann, a princess, a fairy and an old lady - talked it over and decided four each would be a good amount. ``I feel like I'm on video or something,'' one said as they discussed the moral dilemma.

An hour into it, there were still pounds of Tootsie Rolls and it was obvious that kids have a conscience. It was time to switch to the heavy artillery: KitKats.

The KitKats didn't last. A Spiderman, a Swiss miss and a Ninja all took one, but their parents were near the front porch. Then a group of 10 arrived and cleaned out the bowl.

``Someone was mighty dumb to put that out there,'' said the last kid off the porch, perhaps bitter because he didn't get a handful of KitKats like his friends.

The Butterfingers also didn't last long. To be fair, though, few people can resist Butterfingers. Even Batman.

But for the most part kids were poignantly honest. Nobody emptied the bowl into a pillowcase. Nearly everybody thought about the trick-or-treaters still to come. One girl dressed as a mouse watched all of her friends take two or three Butterfingers, but she only took one. She wanted to leave the last one in the bowl for someone else.

Several of the kids yelled ``Cool!'' or ``Thank you!'' at the vacant house.

It's true what they say about children: They're unpredictable.

Judge lets driver off the hoof 

It took some horse sense for a judge to figure out a complicated traffic case.

The issue came up when police charged Naty Avila with nearly hitting two mounted police officers crossing the street Aug. 27 in downtown St. Paul, Minn.

The state's crosswalk law requires drivers to stop and yield for pedestrians.

But Avila, who represented herself in court, argued that an officer on a horse is an equestrian - not a pedestrian - because state traffic law defines a pedestrian as ``any person afoot or in a wheelchair.''

Judge Kathleen Gearin agreed that too many legs were involved. She dismissed the charge Tuesday of failing to yield to a pedestrian.

Barbie too hot to handle

Sick of adults throwing tantrums over unmet demand for Happy Holidays Barbie dolls, some store owners have limited sales - and one stopped selling them altogether.

``There's too many worries in the world for grown people to raise such a fuss over Barbie,'' said Dee Hughes, manager of the toy department at a Wal-Mart in Athens, Tenn.

Hughes said customers have been calling at 6 a.m. to see if a shipment arrived overnight. Sometimes they harass sales clerks, convinced that the seasonal Barbies - in their glittery gold gowns, dark velvet coats, white fur hats and hand muffs - are stashed in a back room.

Hughes' solution: stop selling Happy Holidays Barbie. Her district manager gave Wal-Mart stores the option of selling the dolls this year, and the sales staff agreed: They just aren't worth the hassle.

Further shipments will be donated to terminally ill children at three area hospitals, Hughes said.

Mattel Inc., which manufactures Barbie, contends there are plenty of the dolls to go around.

``We didn't want to disappoint again this year, so we increased our production and shipped earlier than normal,'' Mattel spokeswoman Sara Rosales said Friday. Shipments started in July, instead of September, she said.

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Photo: Oprah goes one-on-one

Oprah Winfrey jokes with Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls during taping of her show in Chicago that will air Monday.

Associated Press