To hell in a handbasket

"Going to Hell in a handbasket" or "Going to hell in a handcart" is an English alliterative phrase of unclear origin, describing something or a situation taking a turn for the worse or towards disaster without effort or in great haste.

There are similar phrases going back over 400 years, such as to "Heaven in a wheelbarrow". There has been some speculation that the phrases may be related, with "to Hell in a handbasket" perhaps being a mocking reference to the Guillotine which often used a lined basket to catch the severed head.Fact|date=May 2008

Its first use recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary is in a historical work of 1865 by I. Windslow Ayer entitled "The Great North-Western Conspiracy in All Its Startling Details", with the quote: "Thousands of our best men were prisoners in Camp Douglas, and if once at liberty would ‘send abolitionists to hell in a hand basket.'"

It has also appeared in title of several published works and other media:
*" [http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Hell_in_a_Handbasket Hell in a Handbasket] " was the title of a 1998 Star Trek comic book.
*" [http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&isbn=1585424587&itm=1 Hell in a Handbasket] " is the title of a 2006 book (ISBN 1585424587) by American counterculture cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, who authors a nationally syndicated cartoon strip This Modern World.
*"Hell in a handbasket" was the name of an undescribed con requiring a trained cat referenced in the 2004 film, Ocean's Twelve.

Often heard quoted in the midwest circa 1940s, according to Rieta Collins.Fact|date=May 2008

References