Lombard Street to a China orange

As Jorrocks expressed it, in the event of such a catastrophe happening, “It was all Lombard Street to a China orange we’d lose the number of our mess and sarve as food for fishes!”

1885 John Conroy Hutcheson On Board the Esmeralda (Chapter Fifteen. “A Little Unpleasantness.”)

Mora has been a favourite recreation with these people almost from their cradles, and he would be a bold man indeed who would venture to challenge a Torrese at this game, for the native's skill and experience are almost bound to tell eventually in his favour, and the odds are "Lombard Street to a China orange" against the outside player.

1907 Herbert M. Vaughan, The Naples Riviera (Chapter II "The Vesuvian Shore and Monte Sant' Angelo")

Of course he was still sneered at by many as a mere poseur; it still seemed to be all Lombard Street to a china orange that he would be beaten down under the myriad trampling feet of middle-class indifference and disdain.

1916, Frank Harris, Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions. Volume 1, page 66

It looked the proverbial Lombard Street to a china orange that he must be run down and killed. By a superlatively skilful piece of driving, the bus-driver just managed to avoid him[.]

1937, Sir Malcolm Campbell, The Roads and the Problem of their Safety, London: Hutchinson, page 151