PURPOSE: To surely prevent double feeding of sheets without generating paper noise in feeding paper.

CONSTITUTION: A friction pad 31 to be pressed onto a paper-feed roller 13 is separated to a first pad portion 31a in contact with the paper-feed roller 13 and a second pad portion 31b located in the upstream in the carrying direction of the first pad portion 31a and not in contact with the paper-feed roller 13. And a friction coefficient μ4 of the second pad portion 31b against a sheet S is set larger than the friction coefficient μ5 of the first pad portion 31a. Thus, if sheets S are delivered in plural by the paper-feed roller 13, the double-fed sheets S are made loose in contact with the second pad portion 31b and the loose double-fed sheets S are separated one by one between the first pad portion 31a and the paper-feed roller 13.