Her Majesty's Mails
William Lewins62£ s. d. Product of foreign mails for the year 17,805 1 7 The King's Majesty paid for his foreign letters 178 18 4 Product of Harwich packet-boats 950 5 4 The Inland window money amounted to 870 4 2 The letter-receivers' money 313 19 8 The letter-carriers' money 30,497 10 0 The Postmaster's money 37,819 8 11 Officers were fined to the extent of 13 0 0 The profits of the Irish Office were 2,419 14 0 Ditto Penny-Post 800 0 0 The Scotch Office appears not only not to have brought in any profits, but we find an item of absolute loss on the exchange of money with Edinburgh to the extent of 210l. 10s. 10d. Amongst the more interesting items of expenditure we notice that-- £ s. d. The six clerks in the Foreign Office and about twenty clerks belonging to other departments received per annum 60 0 0 The salary of the Postmaster-General was 1,500 0 0 Two officers had 200l. per annum, a third had 150l., and a fourth had 100l.--all four, doubtless, heads of departments 450 0 0 There were eight letter-receivers in London, viz. at Gray's Inn, at Temple Bar, at King Street, at Westminster, in Holborn, in Covent Garden, in Pall Mall, and in the Strand two offices, whose yearly salaries amounted in all to 110 6 8 The yearly salaries of the whole body of letter-carriers 1,338 15 0 The salaries of the deputy-postmasters 5,639 6 0 The entire total expenditure was 13,509l. 6s. 8d. "Thus we find," adds Mr. Scudamore, "that while the 'whole net produce' of the establishment for a year was not equal to the sum which we derive from the commission on money-orders in a year (Mr. Scudamore is writing of 1854), or to the present 'net produce' of the single town of Liverpool, so also, the whole expenditure of the whole establishment for a year was but a little larger than the sum which we now pay once a month for salaries to the clerks of the London Office alone." If we subtract the total expenditure from the "whole net produce," as it is called, we get a sum exceeding 62,000l. as the entire net receipts of the Post-Office for the year 1686-7.