From: "Talarican" <exultnttalarican@mindspring.com>
Subject: (urth) So What Happened Fifty Years Ago on St. Croix?
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 23:32:26 

No sooner did I crack my newly delivered used copy (Scribner's edition) of
5HC, but what should appear to my eyes but the following:

Number Five, to "Dr. John V. Marsch" (actually Victor Trenchard in
disguise), who has just appeared at 666 Saltimbanque for the first time,
inquiring for Aubrey Veil,
"...there are fewer people here now than there were fifty years ago."

Of course in typical Wolfean sleight-of-typewriter, they abruptly go off on
a tangent about Mr. Million, rather than discuss this issue any further.

If I were compiling IAQ's on 5HC (it could happen!), this would certainly be
one of them. Why did the population of Port-Mimizon, perhaps all of St.
Croix and perhaps St. Anne as well (Number Five of course didn't make it
clear precisely to what population he referred), decline over a period long
after
the war?

Being a lazy sort, rather than do my own research from scratch, I availed
myself of the timeline so generously provided by Mantis and Mr. Borski in
his "Cave Canem" site. According to Mantis, two significant things occurred
within a few years of that time:

On St. Croix, Maitre was born (or decanted, or whatever).

On St. Anne, Old Culot had his last encounter with an abo, which his
grandson recounted for Dr. Marsch some forty years later.

And I know what thoughts are stirring out there, even now: this could be
connected to the Veil scenario in some fashion. For example, "abo-like" abos
such as the one Old Culot encountered disappeared from St. Anne about that
time as they replaced the human population?

Talarican


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