“Joint sittings”—meetings, that is, of men and women Friends in one body—are also held occasionally, when any question of special interest to all the members is to be considered, and on these occasions the women are free to take their full share in the discussions. These occasional combinations are the more easily practicable, because, strange as it may seem to most people, no question is ever put to the vote. From the earliest times, all decisions have been arrived at by what may be called a practical unanimity. The Yearly Meeting, like every other meeting for “business” or “discipline,” has its clerk, who, with one or more assistants, performs the combined functions of chairman and secretary. When any question has been fully considered, it is the duty of the clerk to interpret the sense of the meeting, and to prepare a minute accordingly; which minute, being read to the meeting, often receives a certain amount of verbal, or even of substantial modification, in accordance with the suggestions of individual Friends; but, when entered upon the books, is accepted as embodying the decision of the meeting. Should there be any considerable division of judgment upon any important question, it is usually, if possible, adjourned till the next Yearly Meeting; and this plan has, I believe, been almost invariably found sufficient to bring about the practical unanimity required for a final settlement of the question. It is certainly a very remarkable fact that so large a body should transact all its affairs without ever voting, to the full satisfaction of the great majority of those concerned. The Quarterly and Monthly Meetings are, in most respects, repetitions on a smaller scale of the Yearly Meeting. The business of all these subordinate meetings is transacted, like that of the Yearly Meeting, without voting, and settled similarly through the action of the clerk when a practical unanimity is arrived at. Each Monthly Meeting appoints “representatives” to the next Quarterly Meeting, and the Quarterly Meetings in like manner appoint “representatives” to the Yearly Meeting. These Friends have no very definite function to perform, but their names are called over, and their presence or absence noted at the opening of each meeting to which they are sent; and they are expected to serve in a general way as a special medium of communication between the larger and the smaller meetings to which they belong.