{163} In competition with law, custom frequently carries the day. In India, especially in the South, "custom has always been to a great extent superior to the written law."[14] In the Ramnad case, the Judicial Committee expressly declared that, "under the Hindu system of law, clear proof of usage will outweigh the written text of the law."[15] It was also a maxim of the Roman jurists that laws may be abrogated by desuetude or contrary usage;[16] and in modern times the same doctrine is acted upon in Scotland.[17] Moreover, when a custom cannot abrogate the law, it may still have a paralysing influence on its execution. According to the laws of European nations, a man who has killed another in a duel is to be treated as a homicide; yet wherever the duel exists as a custom, the law against it is ineffective. So it is on the Continent, and so it was in England in the eighteenth century, when a well-informed writer could affirm that he had "not found any case of an actual execution in England in consequence of a duel fairly fought."[18] In this instance the ineffectiveness of the law is owing to the fact that the law has not been able to abolish an old custom. But the superiority of custom also shows itself in cases where the law itself is getting antiquated, and a new custom, enforced by public opinion, springs up in opposition to it. Thus, contrary to law and earlier usage, it is nowadays the custom of certain European countries that a sentence of death is not carried into execution. Even "bad habits" tend to weaken the authority of the law. Probably the two most prominent civil vices of the Chinese are bribery and gambling. Against both these vices their penal code speaks with no uncertain sound; and yet, according to {164} Professor Douglas, it is no exaggeration to say that if the law were enforced, it would make a clean sweep of ninety-nine of every hundred officials in the empire.[19] Other illustrations of the same principle may be found much nearer home. [Footnote 14: Burnell, quoted by Nelson, _View of the Hind[=u] Law_, p. 136.] [Footnote 15: Mayne, _Treatise on Hindu Law and Usage_, p. 41.] [Footnote 16: _Institutiones_, i. 2. 11. _Digesta_, i. 3. 32.] [Footnote 17: Mackenzie, _Studies in Roman Law_, p. 54.] [Footnote 18: Quoted by Bosquett, _Treatise on Duelling_, p. 80. _Cf._ _A Short Treatise upon the Propriety and Necessity of Duelling_, printed at Bath in 1779. In 1808, however, Major Campbell was sentenced to death and executed for killing Captain Boyd in a duel (Storr, 'Duel,' in _Encyclopædia Britannica_, vii. 514).] [Footnote 19: Douglas, _Society in China_, p. 82.]