 Serving under them in their principal localities were commissaries ("stanovoi pristav").Ispravniki and pristav alike were armed with broad and obscurely-defined powers, which, combined with the fact that they were for the most part illiterate and wholly ignorant of the law, formed crushing forces of oppression.Towards the end of the reign of Alexander II, the government, in order to preserve order in the country districts, also created a special class of mounted rural policemen ("uryadniks", from "uriad", order), who, in a time without habeas corpus, were armed with power to arrest all suspects on the spot.