I have an old friend who, adding to a mind accustomed to accurate observation, more than fifty years of experience, frequently remarks that he has never yet had half a dozen conversations with any person, without detecting a falsehood.[1] It is well known that in our day it is scarcely possible to bargain even with a saint, without discovering him a liar; and I verily believe that had all who ever indulged this habit been treated like Ananias and his spouse, the world would long since have been depopulated. Fortunately, none are now so summarily punished, or there would be a terrible “falling down and giving up of the ghost.” For this generous forbearance, we may, perhaps, be indebted to the superiority which we have acquired over these two rude victims. We have certainly improved somewhat upon their example, yet it must be owned that our progress in this habit has not been commensurate with that made in the other improvements of the age. Some of the fabrications of the Carthaginians and old Assyrians, noted for their proficiency in this particular, were greatly superior to any encountered in the present day. We have lost the ancient spirit, which, it is feared, can only be revived by re-enacting some of the ancient laws. For instance, in Sparta, it is said, thieves were punished, not for stealing, but for permitting themselves to be caught; the law-makers, no doubt, arguing that the fool deserves severer chastisement than the rogue. Were the same rule adopted now as to lying, it would soon close the mouths of those arrant bunglers who so frequently provoke our ridicule and contempt.