Doctor Nagle was appointed to be "curator of manuscripts", the ostensible duty of which was to superintend the reports (then daily issuing from the press, and written for the most part by the Seceders) for the purpose of preventing the publication of anything illegal or dangerous.

In effect, he was nominally, literary, legal and moral censor.

But the unanimous and loud indignation of the essayists rendered his task a light one.

He was content to accept the salary and leave those gentlemen the guardians of their own safety, their character and literary fame.

Doctor Nagle continued to act as librarian and, weekly, delivered to the secretary certain lists of contributions that had been previously furnished him by that gentleman.