not the dupe of ignorance, but the slave of passion, the victim of habit or necessity.  To argue with strong passion, with inveterate habit, with desperate circumstances, is to talk to the winds.  Clownish ignorance may indeed be dispelled, and taught better; but it is seldom that a criminal is not aware of the consequences of his act, or has not made up his mind to the alternative.  They are, in general, too knowing by half.  You tell a person of this stamp what is his interest; he says he does not care about his interest, or the world and he differ on that particular.  But there is one point on which he must agree with them, namely, what they think of his conduct, and that is the only hold you have of him.  A man may be callous and indifferent to what happens to himself; but he is never indifferent to public opinion, or proof against open scorn and infamy.  Shame, then, not fear, is the sheet-anchor of the law.  He who is not afraid of being pointed at as a thief, will not mind a month’s hard labour.  He who is prepared to take the life of another, is already reckless of his own.  But every one makes a sorry figure in the pillory; and the being launched from the New Drop lowers a man in his own opinion.  The lawless and violent spirit, who is hurried by headstrong self-will to break the laws, does not like to have the ground of pride and obstinacy struck from under his feet.  This is what gives the swells of the metropolis such a dread of the tread-mill—­it makes them ridiculous.  It must be confessed, that this very circumstance renders the reform of criminals nearly hopeless.  It is the apprehension of being stigmatized by public opinion, the fear of what will be thought and said of them, that deters men from the violation of the laws, while their character remains unimpeached; but honour once lost, all is lost.  The man can never be himself again!  A citizen is like a soldier, a part of a machine, who submits to certain hardships, privations, and dangers, not for his own ease, pleasure, profit, or even conscience, but—­for shame.  What is it that keeps the machine together in either case?  Not punishment or discipline, but sympathy.  The soldier mounts the breach or stands in the trenches, the peasant hedges and ditches, or the mechanic plies his ceaseless task, because the one will not be called a coward, the other a rogue:  but let the one turn deserter and the other vagabond, and there is an end of him.  The grinding law of necessity, which is no other than a name, a breath, loses its force; he is no longer sustained by the good opinion of others, and he drops out of his place in society, a useless clog!  Mr. Bentham takes a culprit, and puts him into what he calls a Panopticon, that is, a sort of circular prison, with open cells, like a glass bee-hive.  He sits in the middle, and sees all the other does.  He gives him work to do, and lectures him if he does not do it.  He takes liquor