And that is what, undoubtedly, it amounted to. Hitherto the "individuals" had had their own way unchallenged and unchecked, and countless thousands of the community had been sent to their doom. Now, in a sort of way, it was to be a war--a very just and necessary, and on the part of the community a bloodless war--to enforce upon land-owners, and house-owners and house-middlemen, obedience to the principle that "property has its duties as well as its rights," and that those individual rights should not be exercised--as they had hitherto so cruelly been--to the mortal injury of vast numbers of the community. And there was yet another aspect of their work being a war. It was war against disease and filth, and all the causes of insanitation, and against the consequent human suffering and misery, and degradation, in some of the very worst forms. That, unfortunately, was a never-endable war. Great successes might be won--complete and final victory never. The central group of parishes and districts outside the "City"--and lying to the north and west of the "City," consisted of St. Luke, Clerkenwell, Holborn, St. Giles', the Strand, and St. Martin-in-the-Fields, with a population of close upon 288,000--about one-ninth of that of the metropolis. Already in four of these, under the influence of the economic forces already described, the population was decreasing. Every portion of this central group was densely populated, and it contained two of the most crowded of all the areas of the metropolis--the Strand, which stood highest, and St. Luke's, which had "the questionable distinction" of being the second most densely populated parish. In St. Giles', which was "amongst the oldest, most densely peopled, and most deteriorated portions of London," the population in 1851 "did not appear capable of further increase, the district being incapable of expansion either by packing closer or by the addition of new houses." The eastern group consisted of the parishes or districts of Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Mile-End-Old-Town, St. George-in-the-East, Limehouse, and Poplar. In Whitechapel the population was stationary; in all the others increasing. The northern group of parishes and districts consisted of Hackney, Islington, St. Pancras, St. Marylebone, and Hampstead. In every one of these the population was on the increase, slightly in St. Marylebone, very rapidly in most of them, notably so in St. Pancras and Islington. The western group consisted of Westminster, St. James', St. George (Hanover Square), Paddington, Kensington, Fulham, and Chelsea. In St. James' the population was decreasing (having reached its apogee in 1841); in Westminster it was slightly increasing; in all the others rapidly increasing.