The Irrepressible ' Queen Mary ' Mr. Corrigan crossed the
Atlantic by mistake. The ' Queen Mary ' did not do that ; she was not in fact bound for Leningrad ; but as for deliberately breaking a record, her commander and owners seem startled and almost apologetic at the suggestion. She was simply steaming from South- ampton to New York, and feeling it a point of honour to get there in time, in spite of a late start due to the vagaries of tides, had necessarily, and with fitting reluctance, to do the voyage in some 70 fewer minutes than any ship had ever done it in before. This is a becoming attitude, and it is entirely proper for the Cunard-White Star Company to stress the fact that the ' Queen Mary' is there to do her job, not to break records. But no Englishman—and still more no Scotsman, for she is a Clyde-built vessel—outside Cunard circles will feel it necessary to conceal his satisfaction at this demonstra- tion of what British shipyards can produce, or his hope that the ' Queen Mary' may proceed to lower the record on the eastward voyage also, and hold it till the ' Queen Elizabeth' comes along to take it over.
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