Food prices giv­en are approx­i­ma­tions based on com­mon val­ue. One can pay strik­ing­ly lit­tle for a tremen­dous­ly stout meal on the street—six Ched­dar-fried eggs in a news­pa­per nest—or far too much for a chic entree at a bistrot—a cucum­ber sal­ad with Lichys­soise sauce—with mer­it more artis­tic than caloric.

Avail­abil­i­ty of food­stuffs increas­es every year. Oys­ters are shipped far inland by train well before spoil­ing. Trop­i­cal fruits are cur­ried by steamship from the far­thest Isles, ripe and fra­grant. Meats are dis­trib­uted coun­tries away with­in a day of slaugh­ter. This mod­ern cor­nu­copia is owed to trains, steamships, and, most of all, ice, enabling refrig­er­at­ed train cars and ships’ holds to pre­serve goods for dis­tant export. 

Civ­i­liza­tion loves alco­hol. It’s cheap, and every estab­lish­ment serves it. In the North, the pub is the cen­ter of social life; one can enter at any time for social­iza­tion, fried food, pick­les, and beers. In the South, the cafebar is much the same. In the day, it is a cafe with liquor behind the counter; at night, it is a bar with left­over pas­try behind the counter. One can typ­i­cal­ly eat and drink at both at any time of day. There is lit­tle stig­ma over drink­ing, save amongst the high­ly reli­gious. Rather, it is drunk­en­ness that is frowned upon, and no one minds even that in com­pa­ny, so long as every­one is ine­bri­at­ed togeth­er. 

Social drink­ing is often a game of class. Where one drinks is an indi­ca­tor of pros­per­i­ty, or aspi­ra­tions of it, and what one drinks is fur­ther proof. Beer is drunk by all, but what beer? To be seen order­ing a tup­pen­ny beer indi­cates some mild abun­dance. More­so, a cold bar­ley­wine of high grav­i­ty bespeaks one’s social grav­i­ty. The same is true of spir­its. To afford a dou­ble rocks pour of import­ed Lyre­ness exhibits afflu­ence. To swill dip­so in a back­town gin palace indi­cates the oppo­site.

As with food­stuffs, the cut­ting edge of drink­ing con­cerns ice. Ice begets not only chilled drinks, but mixed drinks. Cock­tails are the going fad. Made strong, every­where, and served very cold, wreathed in gar­nish in elab­o­rate glass­ware. These are the liba­tions of choice in the bet­ter cabarets, jasm halls, pri­vate clubs, and restau­rants. The more elab­o­rate the cocktail—the more import­ed, cost­ly fruits, spir­its, and spices required—the more it charms; the more it beto­kens wealth, moder­ni­ty, and joie de vivre. 

Only one bev­er­age rivals mixed drinks in per­ceived fin­ery, and that drink is espelette. Bub­bling, gold­en wine from the East of Belvirine, served chilled, made pop­u­lar in recent decades by an asso­ci­a­tion with new-age pros­per­i­ty. Espelette was wide­ly pro­mot­ed at the Tri­om­phe Impér­i­al, a grand expo­si­tion held to cel­e­brate the Emper­oussin Domin­ion’s gold­en jubilee, and has ever since stood for for­tune, moder­ni­ty, and expense. Bot­tles do not sell for less than £2 10p out­side Belvirine—a price enforced by Domin­ion law—and grand cru vin­tages are glad­ly bought for £10 a bot­tle. 

 stable

transportation

Horse and car­riage trans­port has large­ly declined out­side cities. How­ev­er, stages may still be hired where trains are absent or slow, and post-chais­es remain a high-speed method of con­veyance between cities. 

Sad­dle hors­es are often avail­able for hire, espe­cial­ly in urban areas, but even these are grow­ing unpop­u­lar, as few­er and few­er folk are will­ing to—or know how—to ride.

Many liv­ery sta­bles still offer car­riages, typ­i­cal­ly small, for hire. The hors­es asso­ci­at­ed with these are ordi­nar­i­ly well-man­nered and require very lit­tle skill to pilot.  

Train oper­a­tions on the Coast are increas­ing­ly advanced. The aver­age pas­sen­ger train attains 25 miles per hour on aver­age (account­ing for stops.) A fast train (or “high­ball” route) may reach 50 mph.

Com­pared to their fore­fa­thers of just 20 years ago, trains run vast dis­tances with­out stop­ping: up to 100 miles. High PSI engines enable enhanced sig­nal­ing and brak­ing. Auto­mat­ic lubri­ca­tors remove the need to stop for oil­ing. Gang­ways between train cars allow pas­sen­gers to move from car to car, cre­at­ing the din­ing car and the sleep­er car and remov­ing any need to dis­em­bark dur­ing fuel and water stops.

The prices avail­able for train tick­ets are aver­ages. Fin­er or poor­er class­es of ser­vice may dif­fer sub­stan­tial­ly. 

Cabs, be they horse-drawn or—increasingly—motoric, are abun­dant in urban areas. Gov­erned either by strict bound­aries (“any­where in the city cen­ter for fourpence-half”) or by the mechan­i­cal taxime­ter, cab­bies charge by dis­tance. Your fare begins count­ing from the hack­stand and is resolved at your point of dis­em­barka­tion.

For the pur­pose of deter­min­ing fares, use a per-zone basis and charge incre­men­tal­ly per 500-meter zone entered.

Street­cars use a dif­fer­ent fare basis entire­ly: You are mere­ly charged to embark the car and may get off wher­ev­er you please. Street­cars tra­verse pre­fixed routes and vis­it their stops on a reg­u­lar sched­ule, usu­al­ly every 5 min­utes (for reg­u­lar routes) or every 20 (for slow routes.) Omnibuses—very large urban stage coaches—operate in the same fash­ion.