Do you think that a man so feeling can do his best, either at an oar or at any other kind of work?
I am sure it would not be so in my case.

But if you brighten his life a little, and show him that he is not regarded as merely a brute beast, and that you take some interest in him, he will work in a different spirit.

Even viewed from a merely monetary point of view it must pay well to render him as content as possible with his lot.

You know how great is the mortality among the slaves--how they pine away and die from no material malady that can be detected, but simply from hopelessness and weariness of life, aided, undoubtedly, in the case of the galley slaves, by sleeping in the damp night air after an exposure all day to the full heat of the sun.

This brings an answer to your second objection.