The Express.
London, England, 1855-01-08 00:00:00

DENMARK.

FURTHER MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTB
COPENHA.GRN, Dee. 31.
In my lut I announced that Count Scheel-Pleerea
had declined the office of Minister for Foreign
Affairs, which was offered him on the formation
cd
the present cabinet. While confirming the fact,
have today to add that the Privy Councillor rot
Treschow m generally supposed to be now desig.
need for that department, although I do not believe
that he will accept office. It is well known that
Ii
took an active part in the formation of the preeeet
ministry, standing high in the confidence of the
IKing, and if he had felt inclined to accept office he
might easily have obtained a portfolio, as his Politi-
cal principles perfectly coincide with those of the
liberal party now in power. Till a Minister for
Foreign Affairs is definitively appointed the minister
for Holstein, Herr von Scheel, will continue to hold
the seals of the Foreign-office.
Several reforms in the appointments of the court
and those offices immediately attached to the person
of the King are under consideration. Amongst
others the Lord Chamberlain von Levetzow, and
the King's aide-de-camp, General Scholler, whose
Russian tendencies and absolutist political views am
well known, are to be removed and replaced by others
with more liberal sentiments and more according
with the constitutional principles of the present
government. _ _

A great sensation has been created here by the an-
nouncement that the late Minister of b juices.,
Count Sponnech, is to be appointed Director• General
of the Customs, an office created by him when minis.
ter, and which he continued to preside over with the
view, it is said, of keeping this nice berth open for
himself if compelled by circumstances to resign the
ministry of finances. The extreme left are very
angry with Colonel Andras for offering him the
appointment, which is one of very great importance,
and almost as influential and independent an office a•
a ministerial department.
A still more unfavourable impression has been
caused by the proposed appointment of Herr von Til-
lisch,the Ring's late cabinet secretary, to the office of
Director of the Royal Domains, also a branch of the
financial department. Although Tillisch dots really
hold this appointment, it is well known that it was
only to be considered a provisional measure, the
definitive occupancy being reserved for M. Simony,
the temporary Minister of Justice. For, in case the
Procurator Fiscal von Scheel should eventually decline
accepting as definitive Minister of Justice, the office
would be given to M. Hall, the present Minister for
Religion and Education, and Simony would retire.
Monrad and Madwig are spoken of as having good
chances of succeeding M. Hall when these new
arrangements are completed.
One of the proposed improvements in the admini-
stration of the Duchy of Holstein now under preps.
ration by Herr von Scheel, is depriving the owners of
the noble estates (adelige gider) of the privilege
hitherto exercised by them of administering justice
on their own estates, and thus suppressing the old
feudal institution of the so-called Patrimonial-
Gerichle, and placing the inhabitants on the same
footing and subject to the same jurisdiction and laws
as the rest of the Danish monarchy.

THE INUNDATIONS AND HURRICANE AT
HAMBURG.

(1,11011 THI

OF THE DAILY saws.)
HAMBURG, JAN. 3.
The new year has opened with a dire calamity,
threatening our devoted city with almost as much
loss as that sustained from the great fire of 1842,
from the dreadful effects of which we have had
scarcely time to recover. A severe gale from N.W.
set in early on New Year's-day, and increased in
violence every hour till it reached the forge of a per.
fect hurricane. Though it was still two days short
of the full moos, the tide rose so rapidly from the
immense body of water driven into the Elbe from the
sea, and, of course, forced up the river, that the
signal guns announcing that the water had risen 12
feet above the usual highwater mark, were fired at
the very time when, in the usual state of the
weather, the ebb tide ought to have taken place.
These signal guns were repeated at the rise of every
additional foot, till nearly 5 o'clock p.m., when the
greater part of the town was under water, and the
communication in the streets cut off, or only kept up
at first by adventurous waggons, and afterwards
solely by boats. The fall of the tide happened very
slowly, as its flow was right in the eye of the wind,
mad the unfortunate inhabitants of the inundated
ports were actively engaged in securing their
rods and chattels, in the full expectation
of a return of the inundation in the night, at
the rise of the next tide. Many thousands of
anxious ears were listening with intense interest,
and waiting for the signal guns, whose deep boom-
ing sound came sweeping over the agitated waters
and mixed with the frightful and ineessant howling
of the gale, much earlier than was anticipated. The
water, which had risen during the daylight tide to
17 feet, now reached the almost unparalleled height
of 20 feet 7 inches above the usual highwater mark,
and, of course, laid under water many streets which
had escaped hitherto, and caused severe damage
and loss to the stocks of salt, Roman cement, sugar,
fruit, corn, and other susceptible articles with which
the warehouses of our merchants are extensively
filled. It was not before daylight yesterday morn-
Ding that the waters abated and the streets were
sgain passable, although all the cellars remained
full of water. The printing offices of the Boersen-
halls and the Hamburg Correspondent were both
under water. The former journal was printed at
the press of another paper, and up to to-day they
have not been able to get rid of the water ; whilst
the Correspondent's printing was interrupted, and it
was late the next day when they succeeded in
completing their impression, just in time for the
evening posts, instead of the morning ones as usual.
But it was not only the water with which we had
to contend ; another element was in combined ac-
tion, and fiercely fighting for supremacy. The hur-
ricane was hard at work knocking down chimneys,
carrying off roofs, breaking windows, smashing
skylights, uprooting trees, and wrecking vessels. In
those streets which were not impassable from the
inundation, one could only walk in continued risk of
one's life. Everywhere the streets were teeming
with the wrecks of the tempest, and the air was
filled with a heterogeneous mass of slates, tiles,
beams, chimneys, bricks, and not only branches bat
whole trees. The splendid old oaks on the ramparts
which have defied the blasts of centuries, which have
witnessed the arrival of the Swedish army under the
victorious Gustavus Adolphus, and seen all the hor-
rors of the thirty years war, are now uprooted and
strewn about, in many cases at a great distance from
where they stood so many hundreds of years.
The dykes built along the banks of the river to
prevent inundations have been broken through in
many places, aad the country flooded. One of the
mostimportant of these inundations is that of the
Island of Wilhelmsburg (belonging to the king-
dom of Hanover), which is formed by the two
principal arms of the Elbe, and contains a
town, several villages, a great many farm-
houses, and an area of about 25 square miles.
When the dyke gave way the rush of water into the
low land must have been terrific. It was duly noted
here at Hamburg, for it had the effect of lowering
soddenly the level of the water in the streets by four
inches! The telegraph wires, which were carried
across the Elbe to the Hanoverian side on poles,
have been completely swept away. Not a vestige of
wires or poles have been discovered. In the harbour
several ships, some of large size, were driven from
their moorings and capsized ; others were dismssted,
and again others thrown with such vehemence
against other ships that the weakest were stove in.
Yesterday (Jan. 2) the wind moderated, and went
round to the north, so that, although to-day is the
fall moon—and consequently spring tides—there is
no longer any fear of the repetition of a scene such
as has not been witnessed for nearly thirty years—
the last dreadful storm being the memorable one in
February, 1825, when the tide rose 21 feet, or only
seven melee higher than that the night before last.

DRPARTURE or THE CANADA.—On Saturday
femme the British and North American Royal Mail
stesemidp Canada, Captain James Stone, sailed from the
Maley hirßaston and Halifax, with the usual mails, 94
plasseses, sad • full ono oa board.

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