In Fujian Province, eight men stole pigs worth about £800. They were caught and executed with a bullet in the head. Elsewhere a man was put to death for vandalising electric cables. In a third case a businessman was shot for tax evasion.
In a fourth a "hooligan" was given the death sentence for sticking needles in the buttocks of female cyclists and arousing "the strong indignation of the masses".
These are examples of capital punishment in China last year, when more people were executed than at any time since 1983 for offences ranging from simple robbery to multiple murders.
There were 4,367 confirmed court-ordered killings in 1996, more than all other countries combined, and a further 1,733 death sentences not carried out, according to a report published yesterday by Amnesty International.
The numbers are based on a compilation of public reports and may fall short of the actual figure, as the nation-wide total of executions is a state secret. The known rate is more than four times that in the United States.
Judging by regular newspaper accounts, a large number of death sentences are for drug-related crimes. Some were for terrorist-type offences in the north-west Xingiang Province.
The Chinese leadership has been conducting a "strike hard" campaign to combat rising crime, which has accompanied the move to a market economy. People sentenced to death are sometimes publicly paraded to the execution ground as a warning to others.
Amnesty said, however, that some over-zealous officials arbitrarily sent offenders to their death with minimal opportunities to prove their innocence.
In one case a man was executed for a murder committed only six days before. "This translates as six days from the alleged crime to final execution of the sentence, including arrest, investigation, first trial, appeal, approval and review," Amnesty said.
"Police, judicial organs and local leaders were under pressure to achieve speedy results. Eager to prove their credentials several provinces began their campaigns by retrying and sentencing to death offenders previously sentenced to fixed terms of imprisonment."
In an effort to make China a law-based society, with more emphasis on the professional legal process than on the word of officials, the national parliament has recently passed criminal laws which will take effect next year.
China sent a police unit to its border with Portuguese-administered Macau yesterday to help tackle a surge of crime in the gambling enclave often linked to criminals from the mainland.