PURPOSE: To enable to surely feed one sheet of paper by a structure wherein a gap is formed between the upper plate of a sheet feed cassette and an elastic member at the front opening of the cassette in such a manner that the size of the gap turns to become enough large for one sheet of copying paper to pass through by being elastically deformed with the collision of said sheet of paper fed by means of a feed roll against the elastic member.

CONSTITUTION: When a start print button is pushed, the feed roll 8 feeds the uppermost sheet of copying paper so as to abut said sheet against the elastic member 2 and the member 2 is deflected by the feeding force of the feed roll 8 and the stiffness of said sheet so that the gap between the upper end surface 2a of the elastic member 2 and the upper plate 5 of the cassette is made larger than the set value and turned to be enough larger for one sheet of paper of pass through and consequently the sheet of paper 1 is fed through said gap. At this time, if more sheets than the uppermost sheet of copying paper 1 are fed at one time, the more sheets of paper except the uppermost sheet are checked by abutting against the elastic member 2 and even when some more sheets enter the gap, said more sheets are checked from being doubly fed, because of the friction factor between the elastic member 2 and a sheet of paper.