$ cat /tmp/j1.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
while (<>) {
    chomp;
    my $stat = `stat $_`;
}

$ cat /tmp/j2.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
while (<>) {
    chomp;
    my $stat = stat $_;
}

$ cd path/with/12.6K_files/

$ ls | time /tmp/j1.pl
       60.05 real        12.76 user        31.45 sys

$ ls | time /tmp/j2.pl
        0.07 real         0.01 user         0.02 sys