It is not as bad, by any means.

There is a marked line of distinction to be drawn between falsifying one's word and all other forms of deception, for there is such a sacredness in the spoken word, that the violation of it is in general far more reprehensible than the attempt to accomplish the same end by mere action.

If a man has lost a leg, it may be perfectly right for him to wear a wooden one which is so perfectly made as to deceive people--and even to wear it, too, with the _intent_ to deceive people by leading them to suppose that both his legs are genuine--while it would be wrong; for him to assert in words that this limb was not an artificial one.
It is right to put a chalk egg in a hen's nest to deceive the hen, when, if the hen could understand language, and if we were to suppose hens "to have any rights that we are bound to respect," it would be wrong to _tell_ her that it was a real egg.

It would be right for a person, when his house was entered by a robber at night, to point an empty gun at the robber to frighten him away by leading him to think that the gun was loaded; but it would be wrong, as I think--though I am aware that many persons would think differently--for him to say in words that the gun was loaded, and that he would fire unless the robber went away.

These cases show that there is a great difference between deceiving by false appearances, which is sometimes right, and doing it by false statements, which, as I think, is always wrong.