Mark Twain 
On the Decay of the Art of Lying 

‘On the Decay of the Art of Lying’ is a short essay written by Mark Twain in 1880 for a meeting of the Historical and Antiquarian Club of Hartford, Connecticut. The essay, Twain notes, was ‘offered for the thirty-dollar prize, ‘ but it ‘did not take the prize.’
In the essay, Twain laments the four ways in which men of America's Gilded Age employ man's 'most faithful friend'. 

About the author

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910),   known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer.