Opinion of the Court.

court in former cases. In thus stating the ultimate deduction to which the proposition necessarily leads, we do not wish to be understood as implying that we think the reasoning upon which the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois placed its decision in this case is amenable to the inconsistency which it is insisted it embodies. As that consideration is wholly beyond the pale of our jurisdiction, we have not even approached its consideration.

Judgment affirmed.

DAINGERFIELD NATIONAL BANK v. RAGLAND.

ERROR TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF TEXAS.

No. 200. Submitted March 18, 1901.-Decided April 8, 1901.

Brown v. Marion National Bank, 169 U. S. 416, followed on the point that "if an obligee actually pays usurious interest as such, the usurious transaction must be held to have occurred then, and not before, and he must sue within two years thereafter."

THE case is stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. J. M. Turner for plaintiff in error.

No appearance for defendant in error.

Mr. JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the court.

At various times between January 1, 1895, and May 22, 1896, the defendant in error, G. W. Ragland, with sureties, executed promissory notes to the Daingerfield National Bank, for various sums of money loaned to said Ragland. The bank was a national banking association doing business in Daingerfield, Morris County, Texas. Each original note embraced not only the amount of the loan but interest to the date of maturity of the note, calculated at a rate higher than that allowed by law. Certain of the notes were renewed from time to time, the additional interest for the extended period being added, calculated

Opinion of the Court.

also at a usurious rate. The first payment made upon any of the notes so executed was on November 1, 1896, and all the notes were fully paid prior to February 14, 1898.

On March 28, 1898, Ragland filed a petition in the district court of Morris County, Texas, to recover twice the amount of the interest so as aforesaid paid by him, basing his right to recover upon the provisions of section 5198 of the Revised Statutes of the United States. After deducting as an offset the amount of a note executed by Ragland which had been assigned to the bank by the payee thereof, there was found due to Ragland upon the cause of action stated in his petition the sum of $252.05, and for that amount with interest judgment was entered in favor of Ragland in October, 1898. On appeal to the Court of Civil Appeals the judgment was affirmed, and a motion for rehearing was overruled. 51 S. W. Rep. 661. An application made to the Supreme Court of Texas for an allowance of a writ of error was dismissed for want of jurisdiction. Thereafter the Chief Justice of the Court of Civil Appeals allowed a writ of error, and the case is now here for review.

In the assignments of error contained in the record it is conceded by counsel for the plaintiff in error, and the record fully establishes, that the interest, the subject of this controversy, was paid to the plaintiff in error less than two years before Ragland commenced his action. The sole contention in this court is that the courts of Texas erroneously held that the limitation of the statute did not begin to run until the usurious interest was paid. That the courts below, however, did not commit error in this regard is shown by Brown v. Marion National Bank, (1898) 169 U. S. 416, where, construing sections 5197 and 5198 of the Revised Statutes, it was held that the "usurious transaction," from the date of which the limitation of the statute begins to run, is the time when the usurious interest was actually paid, and not the time when it was agreed that it should be paid. This refutes the argument relied on at bar, that the inclusion of the usurious interest as principal in the notes amounted to payment of the interest within the meaning of the statute.

Judgment affirmed.

Statement of the Case.

EASTERN BUILDING &c. ASSOCIATION v. WELLING.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

No. 190. Argued March 11, 1901.-Decided April 8, 1901.

After the Supreme Court of South Carolina had construed the mortgage contract in accord with the claim of the plaintiffs, and gave judgment accordingly, in an application for a rehearing it was set up for the first time that this was in conflict with the Constitution of the United States. Held, that this came too late.

The assertion that, although no Federal question was raised below, and although the mind of the state court was not directed to the fact that a right protected by the Constitution of the United States was relied on, nevertheless it is the duty of this court to look into the record, and determine whether the existence of such a claim was not necessarily involved, was unsound, as shown by authority.

THIS action was commenced in the Court of Common Pleas of Darlington County, South Carolina, by Welling and Bonnoitt to recover of the Eastern Building and Loan Association of Syracuse, New York, the penalty provided by the statutes of South Carolina for wrongfully failing to enter in the proper office satisfaction of a mortgage which had been executed by Welling and Bonnoitt to the association.

The controversy presented by the issue joined was whether the mortgage in question secured merely the payment of seventyeight promissory notes, each maturing monthly, and aggregating $6065.10, or whether in addition such mortgage secured the payment of the dues and assessments upon certain shares of stock in said association which had been subscribed for by Welling and Bonnoitt. The trial court ruled that the mortgage secured only payment of the notes. A judgment entered in favor of the plaintiff upon the verdict of a jury was subsequently affirmed by the Supreme Court of South Carolina. 34 S. E. Rep. 409. Thereupon a writ of error was allowed.

Mr. William Hepburn Russell for plaintiff in error. Mr. William Beverly Winslow and Mr. D. A. Pierce were on his brief.

Opinion of the Court.

Mr. Henry A. M. Smith for defendants in error.

MR. JUSTICE WHITE, after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.

The Federal questions asserted to be presented by the record are in substance the following:

1. That the Supreme Court of South Carolina, by its decision, refused full faith and credit to public acts of the State of New York;

2. That by such decision the obligation of a contract was impaired; and,

3. That the decision deprived the plaintiff in error of its property without due process of law.

While in various forms, in the trial court, the association in effect claimed that the law of its incorporation formed a part and parcel of the mortgage contract, and that the decisions of the courts of New York respecting the powers and contracts of associations thus incorporated should be given effect, nowhere does it appear that it was claimed that to refuse to concur in the view stated would operate to deny the protection of the Constitution of the United States. The trial court disposed of the case solely upon what it regarded as the plain import of the terms of the contract, irrespective of the laws of New York and the decisions of the New York courts, yet in the numerous exceptions predicated on the rulings of that court there was not contained, either directly or indirectly, any contention that rights of the association protected by the Constitution of the United States had been invaded. It was not until after the Supreme Court of South Carolina construed the mortgage contract in accord with the claim of the plaintiffs, and that court. had hence affirmed the judgment of the trial court and remitted the cause to that court, that, in an application for a rehearing, numerous grounds were set forth in which were contained assertions that the adverse decision of the Supreme Court of the State was in conflict with several clauses of the Constitution of the United States. But this came too late. Bobb v. Jamison, 155 U. S. 416; Winona & St. Peter Land Co. v. Minnesota, 159 U. S. 540, and cases cited.

Syllabus.

The assertion that although no Federal question was raised below, and although the mind of the state court was not directed to the fact that a right protected by the Constitution of the United States was relied upon, nevertheless it is our duty to look into the record and determine whether the existence of such a claim was not necessarily involved, is demonstrated to be unsound by a concluded line of authority. Spies v. Illinois, 123 U. S. 131, 181; French v. Hopkins, 124 U. S. 524; Chappell v. Bradshaw, 128 U. S. 132; Baldwin v. Kansas, 129 U. S. 52; Leeper v. Texas, 139 U. S. 462; Oxley Stave Co. v. Butler County, 166 U. S. 648; Columbia Water Power Co. v. Columbia Street Railway Co., 172 U. S. 475.

The error involved in the argument arises from failing to observe that the particular character of Federal right which is here asserted is embraced within those which the statute requires to be "specially set up or claimed." The confusion of thought involved in the proposition relied upon is very clearly pointed out in the authorities to which we have referred, and especially in the latest case cited, Columbia Water Power Co. v. Columbia Street Railway Co., supra.

Dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

PYTHIAS KNIGHTS' SUPREME LODGE v. BECK.

ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT.

No. 194. Submitted March 13, 1901.- Decided April 8, 1901.

Patton v. Texas & Pacific Railway Company, 179 U. S. 658, sustained and followed as to the relations of the trial court to the jury in regard to its finding.

The question whether the deceased did or did not commit suicide was one of fact, and after the jury had found that he did not, and its finding had been approved by the trial court and by the Court of Appeals, this court would not be justified in disturbing it.

On April 5, 1895, a certificate of membership, in the amount of $3000, was issued by the Supreme Lodge to Frank E. Beck, payable on his death to his widow, Mrs. Lillian H. Beck. The application for membership con

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