The 100 year old solution to all editing problems

Editors and proofreaders can find themselves under a lot of pressure. After all, it's their job to do the impossible: to achieve 100% accuracy. We all know, of course, that no-one can possibly do this all the time. People are bound to make mistakes.

I recently came across a wonderful solution to the problem in a travel guide published in 1913. Towards the middle of the book, there's a small scrap of paper, bound in, which contains the following message:

TO READERS.


Every care has been taken to render this volume accurate and trustworthy. But changes take place, both in town and in country, with a rapidity which often thwarts the efforts of the most alert and painstaking writer. We should, therefore, esteem it a favour if readers discovering errors, either of omission or of commission, in these pages, would promptly inform us. Such communications will be duly acknowledged and the inaccuracies rectified at the earliest opportunity.


THE EDITOR.

Absolutely marvellous. Maybe this is - or was - standard practice, but I've never seen it before, and I love it.