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 Rh retain their old law, so long and so far as it remains unrepealed. In a system derived from the Civil Law repeal may be effected tacito consensu as well as alia postea lege lata; so that as regards the Cape Province we may state the presumption to be that, except so far as they have been abrogated by legislation or by the growth of a custom inconsistent therewith, the laws which obtained under the Dutch Government remain in force at the present day. Custom, however, seems to have made short work with the pre-British statute law of the Colony. The earliest collected edition of the local statutes (1862) contains only nine enactments prior to 1795, and the latest edition (1895) only five. The remainder of the Dutch placaaten, reglementen, advertissementen, &c. (whether emanating from the home country or from Batavia, or locally enacted) seems to have been abrogated by disuse. We are speaking, of course, of the statute law subsequent to 1652, the date of the Dutch occupation of the Cape. The home legislation prior to that date may, unless inapplicable or abrogated by disuse, be regarded as forming part of the common law of the Colony. An exception, too, must be admitted in favour of the Octrooi to the East India Company of January 10, 1661, which, together with the Political Ordinance of 1580 and the Interpretation thereof of 1594, defines the law of intestate succession for the whole of Roman-Dutch South Africa.