Opinion of the Court. especially must there be distinct averments of the time when the fraud, mistake, concealment, or misrepresentation was discovered, and what the discovery is, so that the court may clearly see whether, by the exercise of ordinary diligence, the discovery might not have been before made.

Indeed, the principle by which a court of equity declines to exert its powers to relieve one who has been guilty of laches as expressed in the foregoing decisions has been applied by this court in so many cases besides those above referred to as to render the doctrine elementary.

—the bill of a claimant of stock against the company to hold it liable for allowing a transfer of the stock in fraud of his rights was barred by laches, the suit having been brought thirty-five years after the cause of action had accrued.

—tells us that in the absence of fraud the welfare of society demands a rigid enforcement of the rule of diligence.

But here also reasonable diligence to discover fraud is demanded by equity, and where facts should have excited inquiry, or inquiry from any cause became a duty, then equity charges one with the knowledge that inquiry would have disclosed.

An older brother who buys for $70,000 stock from his younger brother, which is worth $95,000, the latter being a drunkard, may be compelled to rescind the transaction.

The rule is well established that the means of knowledge is equivalent to knowledge, and that a party who has the opportunity of knowing the facts constituting the fraud of which he complains cannot be supine and inactive, and afterwards allege a want of knowledge that arose by reason of his own. laches or negligence

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[BOOK] Bouvier's law dictionary and concise encyclopedia

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[BOOK] Equity as Applied in the State and Federal Courts in Texas and Other States