"An hour after his demise the body was placed in an ice coffin."

Along with his brothers Louis and Willie, acrobat Rudolph Mette was part of a high-flying nineteenth-century circus act, but he was brought low by drink and found dead in a Brooklyn stable one summer evening in 1887. The July 3 Brooklyn Daily Eagle provided a brief postmortem of the trapeze man. An excerpt:

“Rudolph Mette, aged 41, one of the celebrated Mette Brothers, acrobats, was found dead at 11:30 o’clock last evening in the hay loft of Henry Hamilton’s stable, on Bedford avenue and North Fifth street.

It was rumored that he had died from alcoholism, but Mr. Hamilton says that the cause of his death was congestive chills.

An hour after his demise the body was placed in an ice coffin and Coroner Lindsay was notified. Mette has a sister residing on Graham avenue and another living in New York. Should either of them refuse to bury him Mr. Hamilton will defray the funeral expenses.

The Mette brothers were among the most noted acrobats of this century, having been connected with Barnum’s, Forepaugh’s and other circuses. The deceased was the owner of a trick pony at one time, for which, it is said, Barnum offered him $7,000.”