All it had was the unimportant stuff. It had the entire slaughterhouse district, and the butter market, and the cheese market. It had the tobacco factors and the candlemakers and most of the fruit and vegetable warehouses and the grain and flour stores. This meant that while the Republicans were being starved of important things like government, banking services and salvation, they were self-sufficient in terms of humdrum, everyday things like food and drink. People are content to wait a long time for salvation, but prefer dinner to turn up inside an hour.

— Night Watch (Discworld, #29; City Watch, #6) by Terry Pratchett (Page 274)