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This puzzle was written in Gregg shorthand, which is a writing system developed in 1888 and widely used starting in the early 1900s. Starting in the 1980s, its popularity waned as technology improved and personal secretaries became rarer.
Gregg shorthand is a system optimized for speed rather than legibility and ease of use. It is phonetic, and many vowels have to be inferred from context. For instance, a small loop (like both vowels of "secret") can represent the sounds "ee," "eh," and "ih" (/i/, /ɛ/, and /ɪ/ respectively). A large loop represents an "ay" or "aah" (as in 'ash') (/eɪ/ or /æ/). More phonetic rules can be found on the Gregg Shorthand Wiki Page.