On such occasions he may stand back a little from the crowd and say, "Well, orthodox, have you decided so ?" and the crowd will probably shout, "Ladno! ladno!" that is to say, "Agreed! agreed!" Communal measures are generally carried in this way by acclamation; but it sometimes happens that there is such a diversity of opinion that it is difficult to tell which of the two parties has a majority.

In this case the Elder requests the one party to stand to the right and the other to the left.

The two groups are then counted, and the minority submits, for no one ever dreams of opposing openly the will of the Mir.
During the reign of Nicholas I.an attempt was made to regulate by the written law the procedure of Village Assemblies amongst the peasantry of the State Domains, and among other reforms voting by ballot was introduced; but the new custom never struck root.

The peasants did not regard with favour the new method, and persisted in calling it, contemptuously, "playing at marbles." Here, again, we have one of those wonderful and apparently anomalous facts which frequently meet the student of Russian affairs: the Emperor Nicholas I., the incarnation of autocracy and the champion of the Reactionary Party throughout Europe, forces the ballot-box, the ingenious invention of extreme radicals, on several millions of his subjects! In the northern provinces, where a considerable portion of the male population is always absent, the Village Assembly generally includes a good many female members.

These are women who, on account of the absence or death of their husbands, happen to be for the moment Heads of Households.