The turnpike gates in the neighbourhood of Bristol were abolished in October, 1867, and the consequence was that the proprietors of the various omnibuses by which day mail bags were conveyed to and from several of the districts around Bristol applied for, and obtained, a money payment in lieu of the tolls, the exemption, from which had formed the sole remuneration for the services performed. The Bristol mail carts running to the rural districts, by permission of the Post Office, carry for the newspaper proprietors bundles of papers, weighing on an average on ordinary days 40 lbs., and on Saturdays 80 lbs. The enterprise of the Bristol newspaper proprietors in circulating by private means the many thousands of the newspapers which they daily print is evidenced, from the circumstance that they find it necessary to commit to the agency of the Post Office only about 160 copies for distribution, and that chiefly in remote rural districts. Sub-postmasters in the rural districts of Bristol attain to great ages. The sub-postmaster of Mangotsfield, who had long since passed three-score years and ten, had his cross to bear, having at 60 entirely lost his eyesight. Although blind, and unable to work in consequence, he quaintly appeared in his apron to the end, and said that having worn it for so many years he did not feel happy without it. A daughter acted as his deputy, and mitigated, as far as possible, his hard lot. At his funeral some hundreds of people, representing various religious and other bodies, attended to pay their last tribute of respect to him. At Bitton, a village midway between Bristol and Bath, there died Sub-postmaster James Brewer, in the 87th year of his age, and in the fifty-seventh year of his Post Office service. It was more pleasant to enter this Post Office and find the old man calmly smoking his churchwarden pipe before the fire, cheery and chatty, than to have such a welcome as that afforded at another office by the exhibition on the Post Office counter of a miniature coffin and artificial wreaths for graves. Another worthy of local Post Office fame has lately passed away in the person of Join Warburton, aged 84, who for thirty years was the sub-postmaster of Henbury, and who for five years was his daughter's adviser after her succession to the appointment. The sub-postmaster of the village of High Littleton lost an arm some fifty years ago, but notwithstanding that affliction he manages with adroitness to sell postage stamps and issue postal orders to the public. This will not be considered a very great feat, considering that he has been for years a crack one-handed shot, and even now, at the age of 70, can bowl over a pheasant or a rabbit quite as readily as many of our sportsmen who have the use of both arms.