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 aged and disabled and incorrigibly lazy, and far more than their proportion of able and willing workers.

Primarily these communities were agricultural. Their fields were the best cultivated and bore the largest crops in all the region. Moravia was then as now celebrated for its breed of horses, and those sent to market from these communities were esteemed the best and brought the highest prices. Men from these households were sought by the landowners of the region as managers of their farms, stables, vineyards, mills. But though primarily agricultural, the communities were skilled in the handicrafts also, and in a little time gained almost a monopoly of certain manufactures—as tailors, smiths, weavers, they had no superiors. The knives, scythes, shoes, stockings, bolting-cloths, handkerchiefs, and similar wares sent forth from these centres of industry were highly esteemed and eagerly bought. They were known to be honest goods, at fair prices.

Ecclesiastically, these communities differed from any others called Anabaptists. They had a chief pastor or bishop, an officer not found among others