'Third Man' sewers now rigidly policed
By JOHN F. SIMS
VIENNA (UPI)—The sewer police of Vienna talk about Harry Lime almost as though he were a real person. The filming of Carol Reed's movie "The Third Man" was the most exciting thing that's happened in the sewers since World War II.
When a four-man patrol of the Kanal Brigade took me on a guided tour of the most extensive sewer system in the world—2,000 miles of tunnels and canals—they first took me to the spot where Joseph Cotton chased Orson Welles.
"Things have been quiet since then," patrol leader Andreas Werderitsch said. "But we occasionally see a rerun of 'The Third Man' on television."
Vienna's first sewers were built in 1300 just after the city itself was founded. Since then they have grown into a honey-comb that builders take into account each time they consider a multi-story building.
The sewers' own police force is made up of men who have served at least 10 years on the surface. Their tedious work consists mainly of checking to see that no unauthorized person is using the sewers.
the wartime days when thieves would dig from the sewers into banks, warehouses and palaces are long gone. The most tempting tunnels are bricked off.
During the four-power occupation of Vienna that followed the war, the sewer police were the only persons who could move unrestricted from one sector to another. On the surface, the sectors were more rigidly policed.
But the arrival of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SA-LT) has brought a little spice to the work of the sewer police.
They regularly check under the
American and Russian embassies, where the SALT talks are held, to make sure no one is trying to bug the meetings. The danger is slight because the conference rooms in both embassies are on upper stories.
The work is not pleasant. The police wear olive drab coveralls with hoods and thigh-high boots as protection. They carry powerful flashlight units and smaller flashlights for emergencies. They wear regulation pistols but can't remember the last time one was drawn in the line of duty.
The smell is the worst part. The air underground is heavy and sickly-sweet with scent of decay. The light varies. In some spots it is as black as Harry Lime's heart. In others, daylight filters down from glass grilles in the sidewalks 30 feet above.
The police know most of the sewer system as well as a pedestrian knows the streets above. But they carry maps in case they get lost. They maintain radio contact with an officer on the surface who warns them if it starts raining. Sudden rains cause floods.
The water level ranges from a trickle in minor canals to a fast flowing six-foot depth in the biggest. In some places the flow halts and debris piles up in a thick sludge.
One tunnel contained a 10-yard long pile of what looked like the remains of a year-long party—thousands of corks, cigarette ends, lemon and orange slices—and the biggest of the patrol members had to carry me piggyback through the squecling mess.
We were under one of Vienna's most famous hotels. The air smelled great when we emerged.
"You can understand we don't often feel like having lunch im-
Parolees find work through classifieds
Richard Nagy said his program has been so successful that he is asking civic organizations to get behind it and foot the bill.
ONTARIO, Calif. (UPI) —A parole officer for the California Department of Corrections has launched a campaign to get newly freed convicts jobs by use of newspaper advertisements.
Nagy fell upon the advertising idea quite by accident. "I was trying to find a parolee a job," he said. "We looked on foot for two days with no results. Then we decided to advertise. It worked."
Nagy said at first he could not decide whether to mention anything about prison in the employment ad.
"We decided to try it both ways, first stating the applicant was an ex-convict." He says these ads accomplished the purpose.
"I've had a lot of discussions with ex-convicts who sometimes try to conceal the record to get a job," Nagy said. "I tell them they take a chance of losing the job when their employer finds
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out. But some think it's the only way.
"But it's better to tell about the prison record as we did in the ad. Then we can also tell about the experience the man got while he was on the inside."
Nagy said support from service clubs would serve a second purpose, as well as save the exconvict part of the $42 he receives when he leaves prison.
"These service clubs could give the psychological boost the exconvict needs to start a new life," he said.
June 30
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The tour was not finished. The patrol showed me a tunnel emerging into the Danube canal and
mediately after coming up," said Werderitsch.
a 70-year-old man who fishes at the exit. He doesn't catch fish. He uses a long pitchfork to harpoon pieces of animal fat and stores them in steel barrels.
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