$ time wc -c lesms10_big.txt
 652751200 lesms10_big.txt

real 0m0.003s
user 0m0.001s
sys  0m0.002s

$ time ./wc.pl -c lesms10_big.txt
 652751200 lesms10_big.txt

real 0m0.054s
user 0m0.042s
sys  0m0.010s