Richmond has done more than any Southern city in recent years, not excepting Baltimore, to assist the cotton mills of the section in their operation and growth. The mills with which one young official is connected, centering about Anderson, South Carolina, have at some seasons of the year owed Richmond as much as $3,000,000 or even $4,000,000. He said that the First National Bank of Richmond, probably has more Southern cotton mill paper than all the banks of Atlanta combined.[326] The next paragraphs consider the principal channels through which capital came to the development of the Southern industry from outside sources, more or less of its own accord, rather than being the subject of solicitation on the part of the Southern manufacturers. Undoubtedly, one of the chief influences contributing to the physical growth of the cotton manufacturing industry of the South has been the willingness, perhaps the eagerness, of commission firms and manufacturers of cotton machinery to encourage enlargements and extensions of plants; and in the enumeration of counts against these houses, this consideration figures in the mind of the Southern mill man. When the second and effective agitation for a cotton mill at Gaffney, already referred to, was proving successful, it was determined not to seek aid from commission merchants because they "--want too many enlargements; they want more goods; the more they sell, the more they get. This does not always suit the local stockholders."[327] An interesting allusion, showing the effect of the desire for enlargment on the part by commission houses and machinery manufacturers, is contained in an Augusta dispatch to The News and Courier, Charleston, in April, 1881. "At the meeting of the Sibley Manufacturing Company today (it was the first annual meeting of the stockholders)[328] it was decided to increase the capital stock to one million dollars. Stock for the additional amount will first be offered, and, if this is not promptly taken, seven per cent. bonds will be issued." The resolution for the increase was offered by Mr. Samuel Keyser of New York, and seconded by Mr. David Sinton, of Cincinnati, two of the largest stockholders in the company.[329] Mr. Keyser and Mr. Sinton were two of the six directors of the company.[330] The mill was first planned to be three stories high, with 23,936 spindles and 672 looms; the doubled capitalization was to allow of an increase of stories to four, in spindleage of 30,000, and in looms to 1,000; $66,500 was proposed to be spent on the village-tenements, operatives' homes, boarding house, etc.[331] While there is no specific evidence to show that these directors represented commission houses or machinery manufacturers, or that they would take the seven per cent. bonds in case the community would not absorb the additional stock to be issued first,[332] indications point to this having been the case.