Minister: How was my sermon?
Visitor: It was fine, but I thought you shook your fist too much.
Minister: Yes, that is a force of habit. You see, I write with a stylographic pen.

-Trenton Evening Times, May 2, 1890

Explanation for those who did not get the joke.

As early as the 1870's Stylographic pens were available to the public. Perhaps they were a little more useful than dip pens, but many people complained about them. Often the acidic ink of the day would corrode the metal parts, gumming them up. Often the writer would have to shake the pen violently to get the pen started.

Many banks refused to accept checks signed by stylographic pens. They felt that there was no line variation, no character in the signature and thus a target for forgers. This attitude contributed to people's scorn for these pens.

The American author, Mark Twain used one of these Mackinnon Stylographs. In a letter to his friend Rev. J. Twitchell he wrote:

" I am writing with a Stylographic pen. It takes a royal amount of cussing to make the thing go the first few days or a week, but by that time the dullest ass gets the hang of the thing, and after that no enrichments of expression are required, and said ass finds the stylographic a genuine God's blessing. I carry one in each breeches pocket, and both loaded. I'd give you one of them if I had you where I could teach you how to use it -- not otherwise. For the average ass flings the thing out of the window in disgust the second day, believing it hath no virtue, no merit of any sort; whereas the lack lieth in himself."