The discussions are occasionally very animated, but there is rarely any attempt at speech-making.

If any young member should show an inclination to indulge in oratory, he is sure to be unceremoniously interrupted by some of the older members, who have never any sympathy with fine talking.

The assemblage has the appearance of a crowd of people who have accidentally come together and are discussing in little groups subjects of local interest.

Gradually some one group, containing two or three peasants who have more moral influence than their fellows, attracts the others, and the discussion becomes general.

Two or more peasants may speak at a time, and interrupt each other freely--using plain, unvarnished language, not at all parliamentary--and the discussion may become a confused, unintelligible din; but at the moment when the spectator imagines that the consultation is about to be transformed into a free fight, the tumult spontaneously subsides, or perhaps a general roar of laughter announces that some one has been successfully hit by a strong argumentum ad hominem, or biting personal remark.