Why is Python so slow?

[William Dandreta]

I am just learning Python and I wrote a little program to modify a text file
with 120,000 lines. It took 1hr and 30 mins. I wrote a C program that
created the text file from a .dbf and it only took 2 mins.

Both programs ran on the same machine (486-133mhz) under Concurrent DOS (a
multi-user mutitasking OS).

The Python version was 1.2.

Why does it take Python 50 times longer than C?

Bill Dandreta