To hell in a handbasket


"Going to hell in a handbasket", "going to hell in a handcart", "going to hell in a handbag", "go to hell in a bucket", "sending something to hell in a handbasket" and "something being like hell in a handbasket" are variations on an American allegorical locution of unclear origin, which describes a situation headed for disaster inescapably or precipitately.
day: wagon decorated as mini-float "Going to Hell in a Handbasket" with costume-wearing children
I. Windslow Ayer's 1865 polemic alleges, "Judge Morris of the Circuit Court of Illinois at an August meeting of Order of the Sons of Liberty said: "Thousands of our best men were prisoners in Camp Douglas, and if once at liberty would 'send abolitionists to hell in a hand basket.

In popular culture

painting "The Haywain" illustrates a large cart of hay heading to Hell. The cart is drawn by 'infernal beings that drag everyone to Hell'.
Various versions of the phrase have appeared in the title of several published works and other media: