2.  It  is  said  that  the  words  charge  an  impossible  crime,
and  an  impossible  fact,  and  thus  carry  upon  their  face  their
own  refutation.
It  is  true  that  where  the  words  used  impute  an  act  which
is  not  a  crime,  the  calling  it  a  crime  by  the  person  making
the  accusation,  will  not  amount  to  a  slanderous  charge;  as,
if  a  person  should  say  of  another,  speaking  under  the  com-
mon law,  ^'  he  is  guilty  of  larceny,  for  he  picked  apples  off
of  my  trees,"  here,  the  charge  shows  on  its  face  that  a  tres-
pass, not  a  larceny,  was  committed,  and  the  misnaming  it
by  the  slanderer,  will  not  raise  it  to  a  criminal  accusation.
But  ''if  a  person  who  had  no  horse  were  to  publish  these
iwords:  X  &  hath  stolen  m^  horse — ^the  discredit  would  be
as  great  to  J^  £L  as  if  the  publisher  had  had  a  horse;  for
every  person  who  heareth  the  words  may  not  know  whe-
tber  he  had  a  horse  or  no;"  and  the  charge  would  be  ac-
tionable. Siarkiej  supra^  77.  This  shows  that  Snyder  v.
D^unij  4  Ind.  R.  578,  decided  by  this  Court,  is  not  law.
