Mr. Lowe's resignation will save him from the unpleasant necessity
of granting the papers for which Lord Robert Cecil is to move, concerning the dismissal of Mr. J. R. Morell from his inspectorship of Catholic schools under the Privy Council. The real reasons for cancelling that gentleman's appointment may,. perhaps, still be a secret in the breast of the Secretary, but the assigned reasons, while they reflect very severely on Mr. Morel's private character, accusing him of " disingenuousness " twice " fol- lowed by detection," are, in fact, of the most petty nature. With regard to the first case of "disingenuousness followed by detec- tion," for which Mr. J. R. Morel! was not dismissed but only warned, it seems founded on a permission given by him to a pupil- teacher to take back her answers, after delivering them in, for the few minutes that remained of the time for examination, and to use those few minutes in correcting hasty errors of spelling. &c. Mr. Morell had denied that the pupils had received " any intimation of what oversights -or omissions in their papers required correction except in matters of pure mechanical detail," and this denial is said to be inconsistent with the permis- sion given. If this "disingenuousness" was followed by "detec- tion," Mr. J. R. Morell appears to have been himself the detective since, hearing from a brother inspector that he was accused of some unfairness, he applied for the inquiry. In the case for which he has just been dismissed it appears that Mr. Morel! had entered in his diary for one day a journey actually taken on the previous evening,—a practice which no less than eleven other inspectors declare to be quite en r•egle, as it is a common practice amongst them to overwork part of one day in order to get a partial holiday on the next. Mr. Lingen's letter dismissing Mr. Morell for these heinous offences is as offensive as it could well be made, and virtually accuses him of detected fraud. We trust the whole correspondence may be produced in Parliament, and that Mr. Morell may be com- pletely cleared from charges which, so far as they have been pro- duced, seem to indicate ill-suppressed personal hostility on the part of some of his superiors.
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