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the great cities. The members of the Duma are elected by electoral colleges in each government, and these in their turn are elected, like the zemstvos (see below), by electoral assemblies chosen by the three classes of landed proprietors, citizens and peasants. In these assemblies the large proprietors sit in person, being thus electors in the second degree; the lesser proprietors are represented by delegates, and therefore elect in the third degree. The urban population, divided into two categories according to their taxable wealth, elects delegates

direct to the college of the government (Guberniya), and is thus represented in the second degree; but the system of division into categories, according not to the number of taxpayers but to the amount they pay, gives a great preponderance to the richer classes. The peasants are represented only in the fourth degree, since the delegates to the electoral college are elected by the volosts (see below). The workmen, finally, are specially treated. Every industrial concern employing fifty hands or over elects one or more delegates to the electoral