where does the saying going to hell in a handbasket come from
To hell in a handbasket I. Windslow Ayer's 1865 polemic[2] 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.'"[3]
Bat Out of Hell The phrase "Bat Out of Hell" can be traced back to the Greek playwright Aristophanes' 414 B.C. work titled The Birds.[40] In it is what is believed to be the first reference to a bat out of Hell: