It is easy to see the purpose of these regulations. They were an attempt to solve the social problem, to banish competition, and to put co-operation in its place. For some years the scheme was crowned with glorious success. The settlement grew; the trade flourished; the great firm of Dürninger obtained a world-wide reputation; the women were skilled in weaving and spinning; and the whole system worked so well that in 1747 the Saxon Government besought the Count to establish a similar settlement at Barby. At Herrnhut, in a word, if nowhere else, the social problem was solved. There, at least, the aged and ill could live in peace and comfort; there grim poverty was unknown; there the widow and orphan were free from carking care; and there men and women of humble rank had learned the truth that when men toil for the common good there is a perennial nobleness in work.[78] For pleasure the Brethren had neither time nor taste. They worked, on the average, sixteen hours a day, allowed only five hours for sleep, and spent the remaining three at meals and meetings. The Count was as Puritanic as Oliver Cromwell himself. For some reason he had come to the conclusion that the less the settlers knew of pleasure the better, and therefore he laid down the law that all strolling popular entertainers should be forbidden to enter the holy city. No public buffoon ever cracked his jokes at Herrnhut. No tight-rope dancer poised on giddy height. No barrel-dancer rolled his empty barrel. No tout for lotteries swindled the simple. No juggler mystified the children. No cheap-jack cheated the innocent maidens. No quack-doctor sold his nasty pills. No melancholy bear made his feeble attempt to dance. For the social joys of private life the laws were stricter still. At Herrnhut, ran one comprehensive clause, there were to be no dances whatever, no wedding breakfasts, no christening bumpers, no drinking parties, no funeral feasts, and no games like those played in the surrounding villages. No bride at Herrnhut ever carried a bouquet. No sponsor ever gave the new arrival a mug or a silver spoon. For sins of the coarse and vulgar kind there was no mercy. If a man got drunk, or cursed, or stole, or used his fists, or committed adultery or fornication, he was expelled, and not permitted to return till he had given infallible proofs of true repentance. No guilty couple were allowed to "cheat the parson." No man was allowed to strike his wife, and no wife was allowed to henpeck her husband; and any woman found guilty of the latter crime was summoned before the board of Elders and reprimanded in public.