The branches of minor importance and the miscellaneous officers of the London Establishment, consist of a _Medical Department_, comprising one medical officer, one assistant medical officer, and one messenger. There are, besides, distinct medical officers attached to each of the London districts. The amount required for this service for 1863-4, including medicine (given gratuitously to all officers who are not in receipt of 150_l._ salary), is 1,715_l._ _A House-keeper's Department_, including a housekeeper and sixteen female servants, requiring a yearly payment of 763_l._ Six engineers, ten constables, and six firemen are also constantly employed and paid by the Post-Office. When we add to this gigantic organization no less than 516 letter-receivers in London, who receive from 4_l._ to 90_l._ a-year for partial service, the reader will have a tolerably correct idea of the establishment required to compass the amount of London postal business in the twenty-fourth year of penny postage.[147]
_The Surveyor's Department_ is the connecting medium between the metropolitan offices and the post-offices in provincial towns. The postmasters of the latter are under the immediate supervision of the surveyor of the district in which the towns are situate, and it is to this superior officer that they are primarily responsible for the efficient working and discipline of their respective staff of officers. Among the many responsible duties of the surveyors, may be mentioned[148] those of visiting periodically each office in their district, to remedy, where they can, all defects in the working of the postal system; to remove, when possible, all just grounds of complaint on the part of the public; "to give to the correspondence of their district increased celerity, regularity, and security" when opportunity offers, and to arrange for contracts with these objects. The Act of Queen Anne provided for the appointment of one surveyor to the Post-Office, whose duties it should be to make proper surveys of post-roads. Little more than a hundred years ago, one of these functionaries was sufficient to compass the duty of surveyor in England. There are now thirteen surveyors in the United Kingdom,[149] nine of whom are located in England, two in Ireland, and two in Scotland. These principal officers are assisted in their duties by thirty-two "surveyors' clerks," arranged in two classes, and thirteen stationary clerks. To this staff must also be added thirty-three "clerks in charge," in two classes, who are under the direction of the surveyors, and whose principal duty consists in supplying temporarily the position of postmaster, in case of vacancies occurring through deaths, removals, &c.